CRYPT NEWSLETTER 40

December 1996 - January 1997



Editor: Urnst Kouch (George Smith, Ph.D.)

Contributing Editor: Stephen Poole

INTERNET: 70743.1711@compuserve.com

          crypt@sun.soci.niu.edu







Who reads Crypt Newsletter:

==========================



The great majority of Crypt Newsletter readers do it on company

time.  While there are accesses at all hours, heaviest usage and

downloading of current issues occurs during U.S. business hours,

beginning at around 7:30 EST and continuing to 4:40 Pacific time.



Readers of Crypt Newsletter log in monthly from organizations like

Lucent Technologies, Loral, Lockheed, MITRE Corporation, NASA-JPL,

Electronic Data Systems, Intel, Digital, CSIRO, Science Applications,

Unisys, the World Bank, Fujitsu, DuPont, the Securities and Exchange

Commission, FermiLab, the US Dept. of the Treasury, the US Naval

Undersea Warfare Center, the EPA [?!], Disney [heh], Oak Ridge National Lab,

Argonne Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley, Vandenberg AFB, China Lake Naval

Weapons Research, and many anonymous U.S. military Internet domains

that refuse open telnet connections and "finger" queries.  Others

log in from media organizations like the BBC, The Bloomberg Business

News Service, New York Times, various newspapers, The Net magazine,

and The Age (a Melbourne, Australia-based newspaper), too.



Crypt Newsletter articles may not be copied or reproduced in or on other

media, on CD-ROM collections of data, or offered - in part or in toto - as

part of any database, data survey, information or research service

for pay without consent of the editor. Rates based on word count are

reasonable. Queries by e-mail are welcome.





Ŀ

 Contents: Crypt Newsletter #40      





 THIS ISSUE



MEDIA REVIEW

Uncool: Excite, MIT robot-men and a crew of beamish TV psychotics

NEWS

The New York Times digs up some Serbian electronic bogeymen

Disinformation wants to be free: An FBI newsletter is hooked on a 'Net joke

The case of the Ft. Bragg hacker: Eric Jenott ruled no ChiCom spy

Random notes: A dispatch from Paskell Paris & Tom Tomorrow's tour of CIS

Virus Hysteria Awards 1996 -- The Winners, or losers

SOFTWARE

EMD's Personal Firewall keeps pushy Webmasters out of your business

MISCELLANY

  Letters page

  Crypt Newsletter Hypertext

  Crypt Masthead Info

  Credits/Acknowledgment







THE WEB SAGES OF EXCITE, THE ATTACK OF THE MIT ROBOT-MEN, TORONTO

BOB AND THE DEFINITION OF UNCOOL



Crypt Newsletter was overwhelmed this issue by a flood of disinformation

in the mainstream media addressing the nature of "coolness" on the

Internet. (For the rest of this piece, the word "cool" will be

spelled Ko0L, so the reader knows it transcends whatever prosaic meaning 

the dictionary has assigned to it.)



The Daily Bugle (check Crypt's mailing address and guess the

real name of the local newspaper) had an article on Ko0l on the

'Net.  So the reader knew the article was about being Ko0L, it used

the word frequently.  Excite, a Mountain View, CA, company that runs 

one of the more successful Web search engines had invested a lot of 

effort, the article said, into a research team delving into the

nature of Ko0L.  The ubiquitous company flack said Excite had

"the world's best editorial team" working on the project.  The

Excite investigators of Ko0L, it was said, had the "judgment

and wisdom of experienced [Web site] reviewers."



The mandarins of Ko0L at Excite had cataloged and ranked

60,000 Ko0L sites.  Sixty thousand!  Crypt whipped out a pencil and

paper and calculated that if it visited 10 Ko0L sites a day, a

modest number, it would take about two years of burrowing to get

to the bottom of the Ko0L pile.  This was such a large amount,

Crypt mused that it might be wise to consult the collective owners of

it -- this vast corral of Ko0L, so to speak -- in order to

investigate its potential as a saleable good.  Perhaps Ko0L could be

purchased by credit card number after which the owner of it would

send some in a packet of electrons to the lucky buyer's e-mail

address of choice.



In fact, The Bugle's reporter was so ahead of the curve on the

issue of Ko0L, she realized it was impossible to define and instead

focused the article on those charged with dispensing the illusion

of it to the proletariat.



Just think about this for a moment.



There you are, sitting at home in your underwear, fiddling with your

Website. You have no idea the vast amount of Ko0L you could be

perched on top of.  If you shout, "Hey, check out my site, d00d,

there is a great deal of Ko0L to be found," most likely you

will be met with a mixed response. Visitors will scratch their

heads and wander away.  But, when an "editorial team -- the best

in the world" -- passes judgment, suddenly everyone, including you,

can see that pile of Ko0L.



Ten thousand hits will clog your server for one whole day.  Sycophants

will turn up to ask for virtual favors. On-line time-wasters will send

you witless and indecipherable electronic mail messages. Second rank

"Me-too" journalists may be goaded into writing articles on your Ko0L-mine.

The Bugle's J. Jonah Jameson could send Peter Parker to take photos of 

you sitting at your PC, admiring your pile of Ko0L. Therefore, we see 

that the Excite reviewers are the actual fountainhead of Ko0L.  Which is 

what the business wants you to think.  Without it, you are nothing.



Crypt News wondered aloud how many of its loyal readers with

Websites of their own secretly yearned for a team of reviewers

possessed of "judgment and wisdom" and armed with high editorial

skill to descend upon them and bestow the gift of Ko0L, ranked

from 1-to-60,000-and-counting. Fortunately, not many, it reckoned.



The computer wizards at MIT also took the last couple of weeks to

drown TV viewers in Ko0L.  It seemed as if the school had

made a secret deal to acquire the Discovery channel so every "futurist" 

program aired could feature MIT students and faculty around-the-clock.



It was so overwhelming, Crypt News imagined the school was about to

hire Lindsay Wagner as a spokeswoman.



Just like with her commercials for Ford, Lindsay could be

shown receiving a CD-ROM from MIT.  She'd pop it into her computer

and a vista of MIT's Media or Artificial Intelligence Lab would appear.



Lindsay would click on a door to the AI Lab, it would open and

a bunch of extremely fucked-looking students wearing computers

they had inventively crafted into ugly hats and fannypack purses

would waddle out. "Ohhhh," Lindsay would coo.  "Those MIT guys think

of everything. Oh, they're so cute!"



No joke! This is actually what Discovery seemed to be

showing for a great part of the month of November:  Alan Alda

and some MIT computer-wearing students walking around campus.

Henry Tennenbaum -- with the same footage, sans Alan -- showing

the MIT computer-wearing students trudging down a flight of stairs.



It was really neat.  Just think the pleasure _you_ could get if

you were one of those MIT students with a computer you could wear

on your head, blocking the vision out of one or both eyes.  You

could add a video camera to the top of your head, too, and send

pictures of yourself sitting at a table, ordering falafel or

chatting with newfound celebrity pals like Alan.



Hey, stop picking your nose on camera! It's spoiling the video.



Complete strangers could watch it and send you e-mail suggestions to

forward the footage to Henry Tennenbaum or those two sissies dressed

in lab coats who pretend to be scientists for NextStep while tooting

the horn for whatever $5000 piece of computer equipment a vendor has

sent them for free this week. Just think how innovative and techno-groovy 

it would be to annoy acquaintances at restaurants by wearing your stylish 

computer and impatiently tapping at the keyboard during their

boring old-fashioned conversation.  You could pretend to be a robot . . .

just like the actors portraying the icky Borg in the new Star Trek movie.



And when you left MIT, you might start meeting people who aren't

beamish psychotics from TV-land like Alan, Henry or the two sissies in

lab coats. You could run into Americans who aren't paid handsomely to

cluck and gobble appreciatively on canned TV while humoring self-indulgent

idiosyncracy.



You could even walk into a bar. A member of the Bandidos biker gang,

a power drunk or a downsized corporate employee might catch a glimpse

of your computer garments and mistake you for an irritating geek. Then

you could broadcast riveting real-time footage to the Internet of him

bashing you savagely over the head with a cuestick until the connection

is lost due to damage to the hardware.



A week later, instead of being on Discovery or A&E, you would be on

Fox's "When Animals Attack!" -- thus broadening your audience.



Even more annoying was seeing Bob Ezrin on Toronto's MediaTelevision,

a program that appears to be one incarnation of the anti-Christ in

this world, being a platform only for the veneration of TV and

computer advertising.



But -- back to Bob.  



Remember him? He was the record producer for legendary rock and roll 

albums like Alice Cooper's "Love It To Death" in 1971.  Now, Toronto Bob 

is a "multimedia mogul," responsible for a number of silly CD-ROM games. 

Toronto Bob was so excited about computers, the serial number on the rubber 

feet of his old Commodore, and the future of the civilized world it 

appeared he was about to wet himself.



Now let Crypt News put this in perspective.  In the 70's Bob was never

seen on TV flogging transient technology. Instead he produced record albums

by legendary rock bands -- record albums that are still in demand over

25 years later.  Today, Toronto Bob has jumped on the high-tech express

to oblivion, producing CD-ROM games, nine out of ten of which will

be in the virtual trashcan inside four months.



That's tragic.



Well, Crypt News has decided it's no judge of Ko0L.  However, it sure

knows the opposite when it sees it.







THE NEW YORK TIMES DIGS UP AN ELECTRONIC BOGEYMAN FROM SERBIA

POISED TO FREE MANKIND FROM YOKE OF THE INTERNET



electronic bogeyman: a hacker, instrument of a hacker or anonymous

source portrayed in the mainstream media as a menace to society.

The electronic bogeyman must always be quoted making grandiose,

unverifiable, or nutty claims (e.g., opening all the automatic

garage doors in Anaheim, California at precisely 2:00 pm) about feats,

usually malicious, that can be performed with a computer.



Usage:  The New York Times interviewed an _electronic bogeyman_

from Serbia who claimed his computer virus would corrupt data

on the Internet in order to save mankind from itself.



               --From the Crypt News "Joseph K Guide to Tech

               Terminology"







The Dec. 8 issue of the New York Times included a short bit of news

on Serbian virus-writers yearning to destroy the Internet.



In de facto electronic bogeyman style <tm>, the Times printed

18-year old Belgrade University physics student Rasa Karapandea

declaring he and a group of peers were bending their life to the

destruction of the Internet.



How was this to be accomplished?  By the writing of computer viruses

for the Unix operating system, said Karapandea.



"We are working on making viruses for Unix, the system the Internet

uses, but it is well protected.  We know how to destroy the DOS system,

that is easy," Karapandea conspiratorially confided to the Times.



Like all good electronic bogeymen, Karapandea and his team of

virus-writers have a back-up plan should their grasp of the technology

of Unix viruses fall short. It's "Dig we must!"



"If we can't make a virus fox Unix we can always cut the optical cable

. . . This is my mission in life to save the world from the

Internet."



It is only the pure milk of human kindness, apparently, that motivates

Kaparandea in this superhuman task. "The Internet is a dehumanizing

[addiction] and the greatest single threat to human civilization,"

he said.



Since the Serbian electronic bogeyman was part of a story on

Yugoslavian protesters on the Web -- a junknews topic imitated in

knee-jerk fashion by many major dailies during the first weeks of

December -- it's worth mentioning that a few discerning Crypt News

readers felt the electronic bogeyman <tm> quotient for the topic so

high that it seemed likely there was a 50-50 chance the N. Y. Times

reporter had embellished a substantial portion of his dispatch purely for

effect.









FBI LAW ENFORCEMENT BULLETIN GULLED BY 'NET JOKE





"Disinformation wants to be free" -- perversion of overused and tiresome

hacker slogan, "Information  wants to be free."  In this case, a more

accurate description of a condition that shapes cyberspace.



                             -*-



Most wanderers of the Internet are familiar with the running

joke concerning computer viruses with names of celebrities, politicians

or institutions.



The names and satirical content evoke a momentary smile or groan.



For example:



"Gingrich" randomly converts word processing files into

legalese often found in contracts. Victims can combat this virus

by typing their names at the bottom of infected files, thereby

signing them, as if signing a contract.



"Lecture" deliberately formats the hard drive, destroying all

data, then scolds the user for not catching it.



"Clinton" is designed to infect programs, but it eradicates

itself when it cannot decide which program to infect.



"SPA" examines programs on the hard disk to determine whether

they are properly licensed. If the virus detects illegally copied

software, it seizes the computer's modem, automatically dials

911, and asks for help.





However, editors and writers for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's

Law Enforcement Bulletin, published monthly out of the organization's

training academy in Quantico, Virginia, apparently think they are real.



Writing in the December issue of the magazine, David L. Carter, Ph.D.,

and Andra J. Katz, Ph.D., respectively professors at Michigan State and

Wichita State, cite them as real examples of "insidious" new computer

viruses in the magazine's feature article entitled "Computer Crime: An

Emerging Challenge for Law Enforcement."



The authors seem to genuinely believe these computer viruses are in

circulation, even to the point of citing the "Clinton" joke

again in an paragraph attempting to explain the motivations of

virus-writing, would-be system saboteurs.



"Some employees could be motivated to infect a computer with a

virus simply for purposes of gamesmanship. In these cases, the

employees typically introduce a virus to play with the system

without intending to cause permanent damage, as in the case of

the 'Clinton' virus."



Put in perspective, this is similar to reading a scientific

paper on the behavior of elephants and suddenly running across a

section that straightforwardly quotes from some elephant jokes as

proof of what pachyderms really do when wandering the African veldt.



Alert reader Joel McNamara hipped Crypt News to this LEB gem and 

wrote:



"The two researchers with the Dr. in front of their names seem to be

totally clueless that this was a tongue-and-cheek joke that is still

floating around the 'Net.  If they did know it was humor, they made no

effort to inform readers - [readers] I highly doubt are technically

adept enough to recognize it.



"It's really telling that the world's lead law enforcement agency

allows these types of inaccuracies to be widely distributed to police

departments and agencies.



"Unfortunately, to me this is another example of the credibility

problem the FBI has when it comes to dealing with computer related

issues."



Neither authors nor editors of the Law and Enforcement Bulletin could

be immediately reached for comment.



The FBI's curious article can be found off the FBI home page on

the Web:



http://www.fbi.gov/leb/dec961.txt  .







THE FT. BRAGG HACKER CASE:  SOMEWHAT LESS THAN A CHICOM SPY



In late October, the Fayetteville Observer-Times started reporting

on pre-trial maneuvering in the case of Eric Jenott, a Fort Bragg, NC,

paratrooper accused of hacking U.S. Army systems and furnishing passwords

to a citizen of communist China. Much of the Jenott trial -- a court

martial -- was characterized by long bouts of closed-court testimony,

gossip, a suicide attempt by one of the prosecutors, argument over whether

computer passwords were classified or not and electronic scribblings

attributed to the Ft. Bragg hacker which indicated that when he was a

teenager he had a standard if somewhat intense youthful resentment of

authority -- aimed at the U.S. government in particular.



Witnesses came forward to testify that Jenott had made various

statements about hacking feats on Department of Defense computers.

Some of this testimony was furnished by a convicted two-bit thief

obviously maneuvering to gain some leverage for his own legal battles.

Other testimony on Jenott's interest in hacking into protected systems

came from bits and pieces apparently culled from posts on an Army

bulletin board system at Ft. Bragg.



At the finish, Jenott was found guilty only of compromising a military

system and for that he was given three years in prison. He and his

lawyer seemed satisfied with the outcome.





Pre-court martial maneuvering

=============================





In testimony at a hearing on October 23rd, Chief Warrant Officer Lorenzo

Clemmons said Eric Jenott told him he could break into an Army

communications system three months prior to the paratrooper's arrest on

spying charges.



Clemmons said Jenott told him in March 1996 that the Army's Mobile

Subscriber Equipment, carried by hummvee and the Army's equivalent of

cellular telephones, computer and fax communications, "might not be as

secure as we think . . . "



Jenott demonstrated the system's weakness to a supervisor who passed it

along to a Major Jerry R. Moore.  Moore subsequently met with

Jenott to discuss the weaknesses he had uncovered.  On October 23rd,

Jenott's defense attempted to show that statements the paratrooper made to

investigators during this session not be allowed as evidence since Moore

did not advise Jenott of his rights.



Jenott's family has maintained only that he gave an _unclassified_

Internet access code to a friend from China. The Army insists Jenott

gave secret computer passwords to a Chinese hacking accomplice,

named "Mr.  Liu."  At the hearing, Jenott's lawyer, Tim Dunn, said

"Mr. Liu" had left the country and could not be located.



According the Observer, the Jenott hearings are shrouded in secrecy.

"During the hearing only a few minutes of testimony were open.  The

hearing was closed to reporters twice when court wasn't even in session,"

reads a boxed-out quote from the 24th October edition of the newspaper.



Security officers for the Army claimed some testimony and audiotapes

presented at the hearing contain classified information.



During a period in which Jenott's lawyer questioned Moore over

what he would do if he discovered a soldier had "hacked" into

Army systems, Army prosecution objected, maintaining Dunn was

getting into classified information.  More testimony was subsequently

conducted behind closed doors.





The court martial begins

========================



Jenott's formal court martial on espionage charges at Fort Bragg, NC,

began Monday, Dec. 9, 1996.  If convicted, the potential sentence

for the Ft. Bragg hacker -- life in prison --  was dire.



The Army, according to the Fayetteville Observer, had been trying

to demonstrate Jenott was a criminal hacker trying to "gain favor"

with the communist Chinese government by giving passwords on an Army

system to a Chinese agent, known as "Mr. Liu." According to the paper,

Jenott's family has insisted all along that he gave only an unclassified

"Internet code" to Liu.



Jenott's defense team immediately tried to get "Mr. Liu," also identified

as Quihang Liu, declared an essential witness.  The idea behind this

stratagem: Since Liu would not or could not return to the U.S. for

Jenott's court martial, his absence would force the dismissal of the case

against the soldier. Liu was a Chinese national who worked for a short

time at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on a computer database and management

system and was a friend of Jenott's. He is no longer in America.



However, according to the Observer, Liu was interrogated by the FBI before

leaving the country.



During this investigation, Liu apparently "told federal agents that

Jenott did not give him a classified computer password. Later, he said

Jenott might have given him the password, then finally said he probably

received [a] password from Jenott."



Further, "Liu told investigators that Jenott gave him at least two other

computer passwords, including one that let him enter [a] University of

Washington computer system."



John Jenott, the Ft. Bragg soldier's father, has provided a partial

transcript of a conversation conducted in which his son said the

passwords which the government contends were classified were, in fact,

not classified. The passwords were published in training books given

by GTE to soldiers for home study, said Jenott.  In later testimony,

this would be confirmed by the industry developers of the system that

used the passwords.







US Army Prosecutor attempts to kill himself

===========================================



At the beginning of the second week of December, the court martial of

Eric Jenott took a strange turn when the military judge, Fred Arquilla,

replaced the Army's lead prosecutor, Emmett Wells, because he had

attempted to commit suicide.



Wells tried to kill himself by slashing one of his wrists with a razor

early Sunday morning, December 8th, and was immediately taken to an

army medical center, according to the Fayetteville Observer.



Moving swiftly, Arquilla appointed a new lead prosecutor, Tim Lucas,

and postponed further court action for only a day and a half over objections

from both sides.  On Monday, December 9, Jenott also pleaded not guilty

to all charges leveled at him.



Arquilla then denied a defense motion to have Quihang Liu named an

essential witness. Liu had indicated he would not return to the

United States for the trial. Arquilla also denied a request by Jenott's

defense for a review copy of the information taken from 600 diskettes

and two hard disks, formerly belonging to the Ft. Bragg soldier, and

seized by the government during its investigation.



On Thursday, Army investigator James P. Samberg testified the

Ft. Bragg hacker told him he was trying to "hurt the United States

and help China" when he gave away a "secret" password.



As the proceedings at the court martial unfolded, Samberg read from

Jenott's personal diary, a diary seized at the Ft. Bragg barracks in June.



From Jenott's diary -- dated sometime in 1991, according to Samberg:



"I just wish America, my own country, would be put to shame.

America is disgusting. I'm getting more and more impatient to go

to China."



Samberg also presented a poem, attributed to Jenott in 1993, entitled

"Red Blood and Snow."  "By the way, I've been a communist for about three

years," was alleged to be the poem's closing line.



Jenott's defense counsel, Tim Dunn, attacked Samberg's credibility.

According to the Observer, Samberg had acknowledged "falsifying a

weapons qualification record."



Prosecutors then tried to build the case that Jenott was a communist

Chinese defector-in-waiting by summoning one of Jenott's platoon members,

Nicolas Salado. Salado had travelled with Jenott in February 1996 to

visit Quihang Liu in Knoxville.  Salado testified that he saw

Jenott and Liu access Playboy's site on the Internet -- a known

hotspot of communists -- and that Jenott spoke to Liu in Chinese.



Prosecutor Matthew Wilkov subsequently claimed Jenott burned his

passport because he wanted to defect. The defense countered that Jenott

merely wanted to be a tourist and had a strong interest in Chinese

culture, having grown up with Chinese friends.



In keeping with the aura of secrecy that has surrounded the court

martial, military judge Fred Arquilla closed the court to the public

a number of times, supposedly due to the discussion of classified

material, according to the Observer. At one point, a witness' name

rank and unit were classified.  The Observer reporter got it anyway

and published the name of the classified soldier: "Alan Castle."



Willkov claimed that Jenott had also hacked systems run by the

Joint Chiefs of Staff, the secretary of the Army, the Department of

Defense, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force -- installing password

sniffers on them during the process.



On Friday, December 13, Fred Arquilla locked the public out of the

court martial for all but three minutes. The rest of the day the case

testimony was closed under a court order for military secrecy.





The so-called criminal hacker

=============================



By December 17th, the U.S. Army's prosecution of Eric Jenott, "the Ft.

Bragg hacker," was in full swing. Much of the testimony continued to

be aimed at proving Jenott to be a criminal hacker.  However, one key

witness turned out to be little more than a convicted thief attempting to

curry favor for himself in return for helping to convict Jenott. Other

testimony appeared to be standard circumstantial hacker hearsay attributed

to the Ft. Bragg soldier. Very little of the court's unclassified

proceedings convincingly portrayed Jenott as a potential spy for

communist China.



Raymond Chen, a former Marine, testified Jenott gave "the [Internet]

address for the secretary of defense computer system" to him "before

Jenott joined the Army." Chen accessed the system using this information,

he said.



According to Chen, Jenott confided that he had been hacking into Navy,

Air Force and other DoD computers since 1994. He claimed that Jenott

had admitted to deleting information from a Navy system.



Chen, who is also in legal trouble from this case and a convicted

thief stemming from a 1991 break-in at the University of Washington in

which he stole a computer, claimed he has been granted immunity from

prosecution in exchange for his testimony in the Jenott case. Chen was

convicted of burglary and possession of stolen property in December 1992.

His sentence was 60 days in jail and 30 days of community service.



Chen testified that he had negotiated immunity with Army prosecutor

Emmett Wells.  According to the Fayetteville Observer, Chen said in court

"Wells said if I can get Jenott convicted of espionage, he will get me

out of my trouble in Washington state."



Wells was quickly removed from the case when he attempted to commit

suicide by slashing a wrist a few days earlier.



Army prosecutor Matthew Wilkov had Chen say "he understood that Wells

was an Army prosecutor and had no direct control over the charges in

Washington."  However, Wilkov added "he had agreed to write a letter

saying Chen had cooperated in an Army case."



Testimony continued from Army employees who worked the Fort Bragg

bulletin board system.  Janet Warden said she had been monitoring

posts by Jenott and undisclosed others on the board.  The postings

were about computer hacking, she said, and included references to S-MILS,

a military acronym for secure military sites.



Warden said she had been instructed to observe Jenott's conversations

on the system.



Logs from the Ft. Bragg BBS indicated Jenott sent "several" electronic

messages to Qihang Liu at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Liu did not reply.



Another military intelligence investigator, Ronald E. Davis, said that

he interviewed Jenott and that "I learned he passed the password . . ."



Davis was asked twice by prosecution what he learned from Jenott.  The

second time he said he "learned [Jenott] committed espionage."  Jenott's

lawyer, Tim Dunn, immediately objected and Fred Arquilla sustained it.



The court was then closed again for the purposes of secrecy during

the rest of Davis' presentation and testimony from John F. Deasy, a

soldier from the Land Information Warfare Activity at Fort Belvoir,

Virginia.



When the court was re-opened, Deasy said he had been asked to look

"over a file about someone from Fort Bragg hacking into [a] University

British Columbia computer."  Deasy also said he was told the security

of a "switching station" on the Army's Mobile Subscriber Network

was breached.  The running subtext was that Jenott was responsible

for breaking the security of the military system.



Ray Chen testified again, claiming he had learned in a chat group

with Jenott's brother, Lance, and unnamed others that Jenott had

"hacked" into a university of British Columbia computer.



Other prosecution witnesses said they had followed Jenott's discussions

on the Ft. Bragg BBS on the use of passwords of "professors and students"

to hack into computers and the utilization of laptops and payphones to

avoid being traced.





Izzit secret?

=============



While the U.S. Army contended Eric Jenott gave a secret password

for a secure cellular telephone network to Quihang Liu, the

system's builder did not consider the password verboten until more

than a full month after the Ft. Bragg hacker was charged with

espionage.



GTE developed the system and an employee, Steven Sullivan, testified

at Jenott's court martial in another closed session, December 18th.



The prosecution's Matthew Willkov maintained the password was classified.

"If classified information is carried on the system, the password is

secret" he said, according to the Fayetteville Observer.



Jenott's defense disagreed.



Judge Fred Arquilla said the password is classified, but only in the

context of determining whether the court should be in closed session

during testimony. He informed the jury that closing the court should

not bear on its decision as to whether or not the password in

contention was or is actually classified.



Clear?



Anyway, much later FBI agent Steven McFall -- who said he was suffering

from a case of food poisoning -- testified that federal agents had seized

an Army jacket and uniform with Jenott's name on it from the apartment of

Quihang Liu.





Suicide?  Or not?  In court gossip rules

========================================



Jenott's counsel, Tim Dunn, said on Friday that he had checked out a tip

"that a former prosecutor [Emmett Wells] in the case tried to kill himself

because he was being pressured to alter documents."



According to the Fayetteville Observer, Dunn said he had also talked

to Wells and the rumor proved unsubstantiated.



"He said it was not true, it was fascinating, but he had to go,"

Dunn said.   Wells is currently being treated at Walter Reed Army

Medical Center after a mystifying attempt at killing himself by

slashing a wrist.



The Observer also reported the defense's effort to have some evidence

declared inadmissible because the government has kept sloppy records

on it. Judge Fred Arquilla denied Dunn's request but said he could

introduce evidence pointing out the government's sloppiness.



Kevin Nauer testified on computer data apparently seized from Jenott's

hard disks or diskettes. It included words purported to be written by

the Ft. Bragg hacker.



According to Knauer and reported in the Observer, a poem credited to

Jenott said "At least I'll have a tiny part in bringing this nation to

its knees."



According to prosecution testimony, Jenott is also claimed to have said

he had "wiped out hundreds of computers at the Defense Information Systems

Agency."



Throughout most of the Jenott case, it has been impossible to distinguish

whether much of the testimony is based on anything more substantive than

weird hacker bragging, notes from the underground, hearsay or crazy gossip.





Jenott takes the stand

======================



According to the Fayetteville Observer, Eric Jenott took the stand in

the last day of testimony of his court martial.



One of the charges leveled by the government against Jenott --

larceny -- was dropped because "a computer password" was judged

"intangible."



In his defense, Jenott said he was neither trying to hurt his country

or help China. He added he was "ashamed" about things he had written

in his diary that had seemed to cast him in the light of a communist

sympathizer.



Jenott testified that he had never believed in communism.



As a teenager, Jenott said "he had a negative opinion of Americans . . .

I thought Americans lived a soft lifestyle."



Continuing, he said he "was fascinated with China when he was younger,

but lost interest in the country after visiting it twice."

Jenott said he had burned his passport on a trip to China in 1993

"because [he] thought it would keep him from being deported,"

according to the Observer.  Later, the paper reported Jenott claimed he

became homesick on the trip and told the U.S. consulate that

his passport had been stolen.



There was discussion of Jenott's attempted sale of an American passport

in China in 1994.  Jenott said a childhood pal, Tim Edgley, had given

him the passport for sale when informed that it would be worth some

money in China.



The plan went awry when Jenott tried to sell the passport to a Chinese

police officer.



Going back to his childhood, Jenott described his life in a divorced

family and life with friends like Edgely, with whom he learned about

computer hacking.



Edgley, who also testified, agreed with Jenott's testimony.



The defense produced two of Jenott's Army peers as character witnesses,

too. Both praised Jenott, one saying he would have liked to have an

entire squad composed of soldiers like him.





Jenott cleared of espionage charges, gets three years and big chicken

dinner, anyway

=====================================================================



In the end an Army jury did not buy the prosecution's contention

that Eric Jenott had been a spy for China when he allegedly gave

a secret-or-perhaps-not-secret password to Quihang Liu.



Late Sunday, December 22, Eric Jenott was found not guilty of espionage

against the United States.  He was, however, convicted on three lesser

computer crimes involving the damage of government property  --

specifically, the meddling with the switching system of a U.S.

Army communications network, according to reports in the Fayetteville

Observer.



Jenott was sentenced to three years in prison and a big chicken dinner,

or "bad conduct" discharge.



The jury of eight -- split evenly between officers and non-coms --

considered the Jenott case for four and one-half hours before

returning its decision.



Jenott's counsel, Tim Dunn, appeared convinced justice was served. The

Observer reported him saying: "For us, it was clearly a victory."



Jenott was remorseful, saying, "I understand I've got to be punished

for what I did, but I hope that whatever punishment I get I'll have the

opportunity to serve my country again."



Judge Fred Arquilla told the Jenott jury "that in order to find Jenott

guilty of espionage, they would have to find that Jenott intended or

had a reasonable belief that the information would be used to injure

the United States or provide an advantage for a foreign nation."



Phillip Loranger, division chief for information systems security at

the Pentagon, said $5 million had been spent to improve the security

of the computer system that Jenott had demonstrated he could break

into.





RANDOM NOTES: A DISPATCH FROM PASKELL PARIS; TOM TOMORROW VISITS

COMPUSERVE





Over the holidays, Paskell "Geno" Paris mailed Crypt a number of

dispatches including a Christmas greeting. Paris, recently admonished

by a two year stint in prison, has resumed travel in cyberspace

under the handle "Colostomy Bagboy." Any who are interested

in swapping correspondence with him can send mail to:



jesus.christ@webcitement.com .



Paris indicated he was once again involved in tormenting users

of the Fidonet, referring to them in one electronic document

as "[the] Filthy Fido Capitalist PigDogs." Bagboy's current operations

are somewhat reminiscent of those of the character Jesus Bernal in Carl

Hiaasen's black humor/crime story, "Tourist Season" (Warner Books).

In neo-Bernal style, Paris vows to "smite [enemies] until they are most

smote" by employing mass distribution of nuisance electronic

leaflets and political statements.



                             -*-



Dan Perkins, also known as Tom Tomorrow and the creator of the

comic strip, "This Modern World," came to CompuServe in

December to promote his new book, "The Wrath of Sparky."



At an advertised on-line conference attended by four people, of

whom only one was not a CompuServe staffer directly connected to

the book promotion, Perkins made himself available to chat with

reader(s).  Even though the promotion was _sparsely_ attended,

CompuServe staffers still imposed the service's "gag" software

on the conference. When in force, it compels those at the conference

to put their questions to the speaker into a queue for approval

by a moderator.  While it's effective at controlling the flow of

large on-line discussions and dispatching hecklers, its use was

decidedly Kafka-esque in a chat attended by only one person not

connected with the promotion.



Perkins' strip runs in alternative weekly publications nationwide

and is well known for its savage skewerings of American social,

political and corporate shibboleths.



When asked what his favorite rejection was, Perkins said it was

"WIRED magazine."



"WIRED asked me to contribute to their initial issue but I didn't

have time," Perkins related.  "When I approached them one or two issues

later, I was told my work wasn't 'futuristic.'



"Now that I have a clearer sense of what they are all about, I don't

think they'd run my stuff because I'd be tearing down the fantasy world

they work so hard to [promote]."



With cover blurb's by Noam Chomsky and Ben Badigkian, Tomorrow's new

book, "The Wrath of Sparky" (St. Martin's Griffin), is available in

good bookstores everywhere.





SOFTWARE REVIEW: EMD'S ARMOR 95/PERSONAL FIREWALL KEEPS PUSHY

WEBMASTERS OUT OF YOUR BUSINESS



By Stephen Poole

================



EMD Enterprises (73 East Forrest Avenue, Shrewsbury, PA  17361) obviously

takes security very seriously.  The introduction in the on-line help

to the company's new Armor 95 - Personal Firewall System help states

that it will keep "hackers, viruses, and lurkers" from messing around

with your hard drive.  It's no joke, either.



When you install the software, the provided Setup Wizard will install

a DOS device driver, a DOS TSR, a VxD and several Windows programs.

This approach allows EMD to provide protection whether the PC is actually

under DOS mode or Windows, which is nice.



Once you've installed it, be warned that the Firewall isn't active until

you click on the "Personal Firewall" icon and select "Install."  You'll be

prompted for a name and password. The system will then be restarted and

protection is enabled.



Don't forget that password!  From that point on, you'll need it at each

bootup. You'll also need that password if you want to change something in

the configuration.



The bootup screen comes from the device driver (which is loaded as the first

line in CONFIG.SYS) and it's the first evidence that EMD is keeping the

grubbies of others out of your hard drive.  Pressing F8 won't work. You'll

still get the Logon screen.



Of course, even Joe Average User might guess that starting the machine from

a floppy would win access to the hard drive, and Joe'd be right.  For those

who want to control even this access, EMD includes the Lock program.  This

installs a custom boot record to the hard drive, rendering it inaccessible

to anyone who tries to bypass the logon.



When you run Lock, you'll be prompted to make a special recovery diskette

that can be used for emergencies. (You should do this. Otherwise, you will

have to FDISK and reformat the hard drive to use it if something ever

goes wrong).



The primary protection against file alteration (for example: by a virus) is

provided by a behavior-blocking system -- a suspicious-activity monitor.

You can specify filenames which are read-only. You can also specify file

extensions that are to be "watched."  If anything attempts to modify a

"protected" file, you're warned about it.



The behavior blocker is very sensitive.  As a simple exercise, I ran

an installation program that copied and renamed some .EXE files and

succeeded in generating several warning screens with the Personal Firewall.

In other words, anything that tries to mess with your disk's file system

unbidden can be brought to a screeching halt by the software.



So, if you don't mind an occasional warning screen, the blocker is

extremely effective.  Nothing in my collection of nasties could get past

it.  The Firewall stopped everything dead in its tracks before it could

cause damage. When employed in this manner, the Firewall is extremely

useful in vetting new software.



The Security provisions are the best part of the package. They

allow the personal PC user to enjoy a few features that are more

common on large network systems.  Indeed, EMD offers a "desktop"

version of the program, called -- naturally enough -- the Desktop

Firewall.  This version expands the program's features to cover

intranet peer-to-peer security for Win95 client PCs over a business'

network.



Anyway, the Internet Security feature is very effective, but the name

confused me.  I initially thought it implied on-the-fly scanning of

.DOCs and other stuff downloaded from the 'Net. But what this really does

is allow you to prevent access to selected subdirectories ("Folders," for

you Win95-only folks).



For those who aren't familiar with how subdirectory protection works:

Say you have a folder named "My Secret Stuff" that you don't want

anyone looking into.  You don't even want to allow a directory listing

of the filenames.



To prevent The Evil Web Lurker <tm> from doing this -- add that folder

name to the protected list, enable Internet Security, and no

one can look at it -- not even you.  You'll get an "access denied" error

if you try.



If you need to access the folder, you click the little padlock icon on the

taskbar and disable Internet Security for a moment.  When you're done, you

click the padlock and re-enable it. The folder is inaccessible again.



So, how does this provide Internet protection against "ActiveX, JAVA,

and Cookies" as EMD's documentation claims?  It takes a little work, and

to be frank, EMD does a terrible job of explaining this in the program's

on-line help, but to prevent access to certain data pushed or used by an

ActiveX page, you protect the folders containing that data.  To prevent

receiving "cookies," you find the subdirectory the page pushes them into

and protect it.



Just before starting your Web browser, click the little padlock icon and

enable "Internet Security."  Your Web browser (and thus any Web page

that you might access) will be unable to tamper with the protected files

or subdirectories.  This is currently a hot issue because computer

magazines have whipped the proletariat into a frenzy over the idea that

avaricious, nosy businessmen, pranksters and vandals lurk under every

Web page in cyberspace and that they all live to play fast-and-loose

with your machine and data via ActiveX or Java.  Whatever you believe,

the EMD Armor/Personal Firewall renders the issue moot with its directory

protection.



When coupled with the behavior-blocking system, you're protected to an

almost paranoid level.  It's very effective but it could confuse

some Web browsers if they expect to find a subdirectory and it suddenly

becomes inaccessible.



What this also means is that the Personal Firewall doesn't suffer fools

gladly. It has to be tweaked to be of maximum benefit. However, no

software of this nature is much different. Installing a powerful

security system on your PC makes no sense at all if you're a person

who can't remember a password or spell anything without making six typos.

Setting up directory protection so it was optimal and seamless in

operation took some fiddling and a couple of trips to EMD's Web page

before I had it completely figured out.



The Firewall provides some other nice security features.  For example,

to protect your PC in a semi-private setting or small home business

while you're off in the restroom or fetching coffee, you can just log

off. The Firewall will keep out the petty snoops and meddlers. You'll

have to enter your name and password before you can get anything back.



The Firewall also comes with an anti-virus scanner called QuikScan. It

is the weakest part of the package.  While it found most of the

viruses in my limited collection, it did miss a few common ones, primarily

polymorphic strains like the SMEG viruses. This makes me suspect that

the scanner is a simple string-search type, which is hardly cutting-edge

technology.  Testing it against several macro viruses also produced mixed

results: For example, it detected most Concept variants just fine, but 

missed an uncommon example, Bandung.



In summation, the Personal Firewall can be configured so tightly it's

perfect if you suspect you'll be spending a lot of time going in harm's

way in cyberspace.  However, constantly using it with maximum protection

enabled is confining. And the scanner needs work even though it's passable.

In truth, however, with everything else included in the package in proper

use, an anti-virus scanner isn't particularly valuable, anyway. The Internet

Security features are where the Personal Firewall really shines and

they make it well worth the asking price of $79.00 alone.  I do recommend

it.



Postscript:  As this issue went to the electronic presses EMD announced

that the next version of the program would enable Internet Security mode

automatically, activated the moment the user fires up any Internet

browser like Internet Explorer or Netscape.  That's not a bad idea.



[EMD Enterprises can be reached at (800) 8989-EMD or (717) 235-4423.

FAX number: (717) 227-9746; WWW Site URL -- http://www.emdent.com for

a demo version of the software.]





COMPUTER VIRUS HYSTERIA 1996: WINNERS DECLARED!



In the PUBLICITY category, corporations were the clear losers, er,

victors.  Nominees were chosen from absurd, lunatic or fraudulent

statements that resulted in overwhelming publicity for those

responsible for uttering them.



The voters tallied up for Symantec, casting 116 chits into the Norton

Anti-virus hat:



**Symantec is a bona fide bad actor when it comes to packaging

disinformational sales pitches as news about computer viruses. One

example of many cited in Virus Hysteria 1996 had to do with a

March press release describing a new Norton Anti-Virus feature:

the ability to detect Java viruses. However, the press release

admitted "no current Java virus threats exist." This led some

to question how you could test this feature to see if it really

worked.



Actually, it didn't matter since all the company was interested in

was publicity. The press release, you see, claimed Symantec customers

couldn't test it -- because the feature didn't yet exist in Norton

Anti-virus! Of course, "At the first sign of a Java virus threat,

Symantec will make this technology available to customers via an

immediate virus definition update . . ." the company warmly promised.



However, Virus Hysteria Awards voters weren't confused by Symantec's

contorted advertising and the company received a solid kick in the

pants marked by its large margin of victory over the other

nominees.





Runners-up:



2. CompUSA (71 votes).

3. Jack Brock, Government Accounting Office (53 votes).



Since the Government Accounting Office's information systems expert was

the highest scoring _individual_, the Virus Hysteria Awards committee

will be awarding the book allocated for the PUBLICITY category, Janet

Endrijonas' "Data Security" (Prima), to him.



In the cause of computer literacy, the judges felt this would be

more productive than hurling one into a mire of Symantec or CompUSA

pitchmen.



Sorry, no appeals.



4. Peter Harrison, Cheyenne (10 votes).





THE QUOTATION CATEGORY -- Nominees were chosen for well-publicized

quotes that, generally speaking, fit the following categories:

(1) brainless non sequiturs; (2) outright lies; (3) sales pitches

disguised as information; or (4) interesting combinations

of the first three.



**1. Ann Landers (73 votes)!



The well-known advice expert exchanged diatribes in her column with

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy regarding the Internet. Leahy says he

regularly surfs the web; Landers admits she doesn't even own a

computer. But failure to own a computer doesn't detract from her

Internet expertise:



"I don't have to have a computer to know what's out there."



Ann Landers will be sent a copy of Dan Barrett's excellent book,

"Bandits on the Information Superhighway" (O'Reilly Assoc.).





Runners-up:





2. Brian Williams, MSNBC (62 votes):<P>



Of the Hare virus: "I'm scared to death that I'm going to

get this or, even worse, my computer . . ."



Doh!





3. Mark Clauder, CompUSA (48 votes):



"If you download your protection . . . you may not be protected

from the latest strains of a virus."





4. Richard M. Smith, Phar Lap (39 votes):



"Its the good time virus for real."





5. Rick Kreysar, McAfee Associates Dir. of Operations (26 votes):



"McAfee [Associates] has never been a company to hype viruses, and

I think it is a poor trend that is happening . . . in the last year."



This gem of mental nose-gold taken from an interview with the

McAfee Associates' Director of Operations was the judges' favorite.

However, it wasn't enough to make Kreysar a winner.





6. Larry Magid, consumer news cyber-pundit (5 votes):



"As far as I know, I've only twice been infected by viruses."



This from a column devoted to dispensing advice on getting rid of

computer viruses. Larry Magid: Threat or menace?





THE EVENT CATEGORY



Nominees were taken from the best junkfood computer news stories

of 1996.



**1. The winner by a whisker was . . . the Hare virus scare (114 votes)!



Runner-ups:





2. Java virus scare (113 votes).

3. Boza virus scare (23 votes).





SPECIAL "GERALDO RIVERA" AWARD FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM



**1. And the winner is . . . Brian Williams, MSNBC (53 votes)!



Williams' eye-glazing TV chat with yet another Symantec salesperson

dressed up as a computer virus guru (Mary Engstrom) during the

assault of the dread Hare computer virus (our winner in the EVENT

category) was a clear winner over runner-up Stephen Pizzo's

"Millenium virus" junkfood news story in Web Review.



For the text of Williams' brain-froster, surf to www.kumite.com/myths .



Williams wins a copy of "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses"

(Springer).



Runners-up:



2. Stephen Pizzo, Web Review (42 votes).



3. United Press Int'l (37 votes).



4. James Daly, Ziff-Davis (32 votes).



5. Larry Seltzer, Ziff-Davis (31 votes).



6. Pittsburgh Business Wire (23 votes).



7. Jon Swartz, San Francisco Chronicle (22 votes).



Further comment Swartz' downright bizarre newspaper story that

showcased Aristotle's "Burma" virus and more Symantec salesmen

than you can shake a stick at can be read on this site:



http://www.soci.niu.edu/~crypt/other/symant2



Swartz's reporting was deemed so execrable by Virus Hysteria judges

he was awarded a book, even though finishing seventh in the tallying.

He will receive a copy of Stephen Cobb's "PC and LAN Security."



8. Lisa Carricaburu, Salt Lake City Tribune (8 votes).











LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:

======================



A 'NETIZEN COMMENTS ON VIRUS HYSTERIA 1996 & THE INTERNET AS CONVEYANCE 

FOR INFO-RUBBISH



Crypt:



There is an editorial in the most recent Analog magazine pointing

out that Clarke's Law  -- any sufficiently advanced technology is

indistinguishable from magic -- is already in effect among modern

populations.  Most people have given up on understanding the

technology around them.  Unfortunately it did not, I think, mention

the real reason for this, and that is the very poor quality

of media coverage of science or technology.  Computer viruses

are only one example of media-induced hysteria about

technologic/scientific issues. Another is the environment.  A third

is medicine.  A recent example was the possible evidence of life

having existed at one time on Mars.



All it takes is one study to suggest that maybe x might be related

to y, and the next thing you know the press have gone to town.  That

is because the job of a newspaper/TV station/radio station is not

to inform folks, but to make money -- and scare headlines sell.

There is no money in publicizing ten studies saying that the zebra

mussels did not destroy the Great Lakes (they did not), or that most

folks in North America die of old age (they do), or that the

Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum reality is only a theory (with

ever more problems for which its adherents must invent even more

bizarre explanations).



The problem is that most folk have no alternate source of information.

For all the hype about the Internet setting information free, all

it has done is turn into another mass medium for circulating hysteria.



My personal suspicion is that hysteria is ingrained in the human psyche.

And, maybe hysteria about computer viruses is less destructive than older

forms that burned strange old women as witches, or ruined the careers of

suspected Commies.



I look forward to the final tally.



-Gamin



[Check the results published in this issue, Gamin!]





JACK BROCK, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING OFFICE, RESPONDS TO HIS NOMINATION

IN VIRUS HYSTERIA 1996



Crypt:



I read -- with some amusement -- my nomination to receive a 1996 Virus

Hysteria Award in the hotly contested publicity category.  Hopefully, by

being first on the ballot, I'll receive additional votes and be able to

pick up a prize.



A couple of points of clarification.  First, the objective of our report

and subsequent testimony was to provide an overview of the Defense

Department's vulnerability to unauthorized access to their unclassified

computer systems.  The fact that such vulnerability exists is, in fact,

well documented by the Department's own internal assessments.  Such

vulnerability extends far beyond the potential damage that might be

perpetuated by a virus attack.  In fact, our report focused more on the

damage that could be done by authorized persons accessing

[sensitive] information and inappropriately using or altering

such information.



Second, as I recall our conversation. Your primary interest in the

report was further information on those countries having an ability to

initiate attacks against computer systems throughout the world.  Our

report stated an NSA position that 125 nations possess this capability.

You wanted more specifics on the extent of that capability and which

countries had been identified as threats.  As I related to you, this

information is classified by NSA.  Since NSA did not provide such

information to GAO -- nor did we request it -- there was no need to be

sworn "to secrecy".





[Enjoy your "Virus Hysteria Award" book. It's on its way.  See the

related story in this issue on the awards and winners.]





MYTHS AND BOGEYMEN ARE A PART OF MAINSTREAM AMERICA'S CYBER-WORLDVIEW



Crypt:



I read with pleasure your [pre-print] article . . . about the lack of

knowledge some of our federal law enforcement agencies that shall remain

shamefully nameless have about computers viruses, and maybe computers

in general ("FBI Law & Enforcement Bulletin gulled by 'Net joke")

which was reposted with a link to your site in the C4I mailing

list.



Now that I've found your site I am enjoying more. Thanks for the good 

work. The site goes to the top of my book marks.



A comment: There seems to be a general pattern of mythologies present in

every society which are usually not acknowledged by its members but stands

out glaringly to non-members of the group. Such ideas as the ghost in the

road common to many cultures or the vigilante-cowboy-superman particular

to American culture. The boogey-entity idea has a pattern unique to itself

which can be classified as a new archetype. What was known as the deadly

invisible spirit is later the lethal microbe and comes now as the

insidious computer virus. One cannot blame the believer for claiming the

sky is falling. They are too much a part of their own worldview. To them

the sky falls. (Reference to Jon Swartz in the SF Chronicle fnord).



Wasn't Bulgaria part of Vlad Drakul's empire?



It is so sad that such a pathetic show can be so much fun.



Regards,



Judge



-=The Crypt Newsletter welcomes thoughtful mail from readers at

crypt@sun.soci.niu.edu. Published letters may be edited for length

and clarity or anonymized to protect the naive from themselves.=-











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Crypt Newsletter is now concentrated in two places on Compuserve.

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----------------------------------------------------------------

What?  You've been reading Crypt Newsletter regularly and you

haven't purchased a copy of "The Virus Creation Labs"??



Well, what are you waiting for?  A gold-plated personal invitation?



What people are saying about THE VIRUS CREATION LABS:



     "Crypt Newsletter editor George C. Smith's entire book exposes an

     insane world where everybody claws at each others' throats -- and

     where even the virus writers have marketing departments. 172 pages

     written with an utterly cynical sense of humor . . . This book gets

     my highest recommendation. Required reading for anybody

     who claims the sky is falling in the computer world."



                      ---Rob Rosenberger, Computer Virus Myths,

                         October 1996



     "I couldn't stop reading it . . . As hype continues to

     build about security on the Internet and movies like

     _Hackers_ ooze the real hackers into the mainstream arena,

     this book is definite apropos material for the time.

     Read it! A+"

                      ---The Net magazine, February 1996





     "[VIRUS CREATION LABS] is informative and stunningly

     incisive . . . "

                      ---Secure Computing, October 1995



     "George Smith . . . takes a look at the world of virus writers

     and anti-virus software vendors in a style similar to that

     of 'Cyberpunks' -- anecdotal, humorous and revealing . . . a

     lucid and entertaining read."



                      ---Computer Security Journal





     "There are relatively few books on the 'computer underground' that

     provide richly descriptive commentary and analysis of personalities

     and culture that simultaneously grab the reader with entertaining

     prose. Among the classics are Cliff Stoll's 'The Cuckoo's Egg,'

     Katie Hafner and John Markoff's 'Cyberpunk,' and Bruce

     Sterling's 'The Hacker Crackdown.'  Add George Smith's

     'The Virus Creation Labs' to the list . . . 'Virus Creation

     Labs' is about viruses as M*A*S*H is about war!"



                       ---Jim Thomas, Computer underground

                       Digest 7.18, March 5, 1995



     "THE VIRUS CREATION LABS dives into the hoopla of the Michelangelo

     media blitz and moves on to become an engaging, articulate,

     wildly angry diatribe on the world of computer virus writers . . .

     Expert reporting."

                      ---McClatchy NewsWire



-------------------------order form-------------------------



Yes, I want my wig flipped and wish to receive a copy of George

Smith's "The Virus Creation Labs: A Journey Into the Underground"

(American Eagle, ISBN 0-929408-09-8).



   Price: $12.95/copy plus $2.50 shipping per book (add $7.50 overseas)



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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

===============

Rob Rosenberger, editor/webmaster of Virus Myths.  Visit --

http://www.kumite.com/myths for a savage read.





-------------------------------------------------------------

George Smith, Ph.D., edits the Crypt Newsletter from Pasadena,

CA.



copyright 1997 Crypt Newsletter. All rights reserved.

