and the other americans whatever color we want to call ourselves can we love each other can we
understand each other can we really form a more perfect union hey with your help and your
inspiration sister i know we can thank you jerry thank you and all of you for listening
thanks a lot we'll be with you tomorrow good night
Both Mobutu and Zaire have passed on into the tragic period of Africa's history where foreign
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they would. Bumble Bumble Bumble for the best expect from us. I hope that's understood. Bumble Bumble!
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Thank you.
Well, at last, I think people can understand what it feels like to be inside my head.
And what a week it's been.
It's been one of those weeks where you just feel like things can't get any more exhilarating.
It's been one of those weeks where you just feel like it's been one of those weeks where you just feel like it's been one of those weeks.
I want to see the light.
Take your breath like I've never been sick before.
off the hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you
with more exciting news
of the world of technology
and the many potholes
that lie along the information highway.
And it's been
interesting. I don't know how many of you
actually watch mainstream media, but
there was a piece on ABC World
News tonight, last Thursday. Actually,
it was the second story.
We were the second most important story in the
whole nation that night.
And it had to do with a rather
interesting
thing, a document
that, let's just say, fell
into our hands, that
in light of what was going
on with the Breaking
News Network, we've talked about this over the past couple
of weeks, the company in New Jersey that
had been
indicted for
allegedly tapping
pager services,
including the mayors, the police department,
things like that.
And, well, I guess
we've been talking about this on the radio
for the past couple of weeks.
It was time to show people just
how wide open such things
are and why it's ridiculous
to charge people with crimes
for simply listening to a radio.
In case you have no idea what we're talking about
here, on Thursday
information was
released to ABC News
as far as
well, I guess
the best way to describe it
is pager traffic,
pager conversations
involving none other than
the White House.
The White House and our friends
at the Secret Service
who are entrusted with
protecting
the president
and our nation's honor
and various other things like that
and
locking people in prison
who
are a threat to that society.
And, well, I guess
it was kind of embarrassing
to point out
that, yeah,
the Clinton administration
is going around
saying these things
but
there they are
simply
broadcasting
sensitive information
out in the clear
with no encryption whatsoever
because
I guess they're so afraid
of using encryption
because it'll fall into
the wrong hands
that they don't even think
they should use it themselves.
It's time people
know these things
and that's why we released this
at that particular point
in time.
It was
the right time
to do so.
Now, Pam is here as well.
Pam went a step further
and
I guess
you decided
to put it up
on the web as well.
Is that right?
That is exactly correct.
So, now
people all over the planet
are able to see
the whole transcript
of this thing.
Now, tell me
what
first of all
what motivated you
to do this
and second of all
what kind of response
have you gotten?
Well, what motivated me
to do this
was
basically we had gotten
the transcripts
as a submission
to 2600 Magazine
but we hadn't had time
to publish them yet.
as you're well aware
and I felt that
I had a copy of them
and since you had made
the issue public
on broadcast television
that we should have
the transcript available
for people's review.
Right.
So, I went and
turned it into
web pages
and then
actually a whole little
suite of web pages
that described
the technology
or links to technology
press release
about the information
and also just
put the text file
right out there
for everybody
to take a look at
and the response
has been overwhelming.
We got about
6000 people
looking just at
the output file
or the captured
transcript file
today
since 8.30 this morning
between 8.30 and 6.30.
You know what's really
funny about this?
I tested the waters
with this story
a couple of months ago
you know
because we've had
this lying around
I mean
we've got all kinds
of weird things
lying around
and this is nothing
spectacular
anybody can do this
the president
was here yesterday
any one of you
out there
with the right
electronic equipment
could have eavesdropped
on the page
or traffic
it's not hard
that's the point
we're trying to make here
so we had this
lying around
and I asked
a couple of media people
a couple of months ago
hey you know
we've got this
this example
of you know
of how
communications
are completely insecure
you think you might
be interested
in doing a story
on it
not one of them
was
not one of them
was interested
they decided
that it was not
an interesting story
a couple of months ago
now all of a sudden
it is an interesting story
I guess because
they're indicting people
for doing this
I mean you know
the media is just
they're so clueless
sometimes
they're so like the media
yeah
in fact
I actually released
the contents
of the output file
to friends and family
people in and around
Beyond Hope
a full week before
the story was
on ABC News
and there were
no ramifications
I even made it
a little public
to one or two
media people myself
low level media people
and they all were
not interested as well
so I guess it's just
timing timing timing
unbelievable
so we had
that little bit of fun
a lot of media people
running around
thinking this is
the most amazing thing
since the
since the coming of Christ
or whatever
I don't know
it's just listening in
to things that are
out there every day
and if you have a pager
we've said this
a million times
anybody can listen
anybody can see
what is coming over
your pager
whether it's numbers
letters
whatever
it's all there
and the thing is
you know
we can all go down
to Washington D.C.
and get this
all the time
we don't have to
sit outside
the White House
we can be anywhere
within pager distance
which I think is about
60 miles or something
now how are you going
to enforce the law
against that
it's just ridiculous
I mean theoretically
there is a law
against this
theoretically
the people who are
distributing this
to the public
are committing crimes
including the reporters
at the various networks
that are quoting this
how are you going to
possibly enforce a law
that says
it's illegal to
you know
to listen to things
that are being broadcast
completely unencrypted
that's the point
we were hoping to make
and
I don't know
maybe
maybe we made the point
you know
despite the
the mass media
I don't know
we'll see what people
have to say about it
my take on that was
even the Secret Service
was very forthcoming
on the ABC News piece
they just very clearly said
the technology is insecure
you know what was weird
about that
they had two Secret Service people
they had a former
Secret Service guy
who basically was saying
you know
this information should be protected
which is what we were saying
and the second Secret Service guy
was a current Secret Service person
who was
who was saying
you know
this is
how to protect yourself
and like
yeah okay
wise guy
it's how you protect yourself
but why didn't you guys
protect the president
in that same way
you know
I mean
perhaps you think that
this information is not
well somebody
somebody obviously
is being paged
perhaps this information
is not sensitive
but I think it was
kind of sensitive
we're talking about things
like you know
location
where he's been
where he's going
who's on the phone for him
I don't think they really want that
to be broadcast
to everybody
that can possibly listen to it
no of course not
and the solution
is not to outlaw it
the solution is to protect it
as with anything
that's why we don't
broadcast our email
over the
you know
airwaves
we
you know
we have some sort of
some sort of
basic
encryption system going
some sort of safety net
things like that
so
it's common sense
I'm surprised the secret service
didn't show it
people want to look at the site
or the text
want to get out the
web address
sure
I would be happy to do that
and for those of you
who've tried to link to this
off of the Reuters article
there's an error
in their URL
the site was not taken down
I have not been captured
by the secret service
the link to the pages
is www.inchinch.com
slash tilde
that funny little squiggly thing
esoteric
e-s-o-t-e-r-i-c
slash
pam underscore suggestion
slash
formal
dot h-t-m-l
from that page
you can see the full transcript
the press release
and all the other
associated press stories
that I've been able to find
so far
okay
and you know
I'm really
I'm really happy that
we were able to get the word
out on this
and I hope
other people
you know
there are a lot of
nasty things happening
as far as encryption
as far as laws
people being prosecuted
and
it's time to fight back
it really is
I guess you could say
the time
is right
to fight
blow them up
blow them up
we're out of the way
to shut them down
but we are going to
fetch them in
but we are going to
fetch them in
but we are going to
smash them in
but we are going to
smash them in
we have to
eat in that brain
brain
brain
brain
we have to
eat in that brain
brain
the time
is right
to fight
well that's a coincidence
isn't it
that's what I just said
how about that
Bernie S joins us now
from Philadelphia
Bernie there
good evening
how you doing
very good
we're only touching upon this
for a couple of
moments here
because we actually
the show tonight
is about spam
so we're talking about
the pager story
I think you heard about it
on the news
you saw it on
ABC News
actually some people
called me and told me
they saw it on ABC News
so you didn't actually
see the piece yourself
I did not see it yet
although a friend of mine
taped it and he's going
to give me the tape
sooner or later
I read about it on
it wasn't a bad piece
except the only
the only problem
I have with it
is that
basically
they made it
so that
you have to
clone a pager
in order to do this
that might be the
impression that you got
out of looking at the piece
and you don't have to
clone a pager
obviously
you don't have to
make a pager
you don't even have
to have a pager
yeah
you can do all this
just by looking at a screen
it's very simple
yeah
it's
too simple
as far as I'm concerned
so now
okay
as a security expert
what kinds of
what kinds of advice
can you offer people
that are concerned
about their pager traffic
in fact
this might be a chance
for you to help
the Secret Service out too
because obviously
they could use
a little bit of advice
here too
yeah
I guess
I know you might not be
you might not be
eager to do that
I understand
you know
you might have
some qualms
about helping them
but come on
they're in trouble
yeah they surely are
they've been getting
a lot of bad press lately
especially now
because of this
apparent negligence
on their part
I don't know
if I'm a security expert
but I know a little bit
about paging systems
having had pagers
over the years
and a lot about them
and that sort of thing
did you already
tell our listeners
what happened
pretty much
yeah
okay
we're kind of
winding it down
now actually
so you want to find out
what you can do
to prevent this
from happening to you
well yeah
is there anything
people can do
well right now
there's no
there are no standards
out there
there's no
there are no pagers
out there
that utilize encryption
it's not like
it's a computer
where you can just
load an encryption
program and run it
pagers simply
are not equipped
and really aren't
aren't
modifiable
at least by anyone
without an engineering
background
to support encryption
yet
and they should be
it's just like
the cellular telephone
industry decided
to save a few pennies
on every phone
by not encrypting
the content
of the communications
and then
rushing to pass
legislation
when
when their
negligence
became widely
known and exploited
so you have this
in the paging
industry now
i imagine
there's a
there's a bill
um
it's up for vote
sometime soon
uh house resolution
2369
right
representative
thousand
who wants to
uh make it a felony
to use a radio
to listen to any
broadcast
that you're not
the intended recipient
for
so here again
you have legislators
bought off by
you know
lobbyists
the telecommunications
industry
to try to pass
legislation
to
to
felonize
activity
that's been
legal for decades
and hasn't really
been hurting anybody
who
who really
is
serious about
their privacy
so
to protect yourself
against having
your pager monitored
right now
there's not a heck
of a lot you can do
other than
maybe use a
a very simple
form of
uh
code
and like have
people send you
uh
either numeric codes
that you'd have
in a like a
one time pad
or something
or uh
just a certain
passphrase or
something
it really meant
something other
than what
what it says
to indicate
what you mean
but it's all
very awkward
and and i think
pagers
as they get
smarter and smarter
now especially
with two-way paging
um
there's no reason
why
some encryption
standard couldn't
be developed
to support
pagers
but now
i'm sure
the fbi
would want to
get in the act
and uh
have some sort
of uh
back door
to any kind
of encryption
that was
you know
put into a paging
system
but uh
i mean
address the people
that
that see this story
they see that
the the president's
privacy
is is being
um
invaded
in a sense
maybe we need
laws to prevent
people from doing
this
well
how do you address
that
well i think
we should have
laws
to prevent
uh
it's a it's a good
question
it's a balance
between um
freedom to do
things that don't
hurt other
people
and uh
balancing that
against uh
against people's
privacy
um
i think that
the fault
lays not in
the the hacker
or hackers who
exposed this flaw
and made it
public
you know god
forbid it might
have been
somebody who
intended to
harm the
president
who uh
who took
advantage of
this information
that detailed
the minute by
minute movements
of the president
and his family
and other
dignitaries
who could
have used it
to harm
them
um
you know
hackers
found this
problem
and made
it known
to people
so uh
something would
be done
about it
ostensibly
so i think
we should all
be grateful
that that
happened
but uh
and i
don't see
i don't see
passing laws
as changing
the situation
um
if the federal
government wants
to broadcast
if the military
and the secret
service want to
broadcast
the minute by
minute movements
of the president
to you know
to a city
of millions
of people
uh
on a
on a
common vhf
radio frequency
unencrypted
that anybody
can pick up
with uh
you know
a hundred dollar
radio scanner
and a computer
with the right
software
um
you know
passing laws
to throw people
in jail
for listening
to these
broadcasts
and viewing
the content
isn't going
to fix
the problem
um
i think
there should
be a law
to mandate
uh
encryption
of
of
data
that
involves
national
security
absolutely
i think
that's
that's
the whole
point here
is that
you know
these
these are
sensitive
bits of
information
and
by broadcasting
them in the
clear
it's a
i think
that's a
violation
of national
security
right there
i think
that's
criminal
right
and
broadcasting
this
information
you know
by making
by making
encryption
such a
controversial
topic
and something
that we
uh
you know
we're trying
to find ways
to defeat
encryption
so that
law enforcement
can always
find a way
in
which is
the subject
of another
bill
coming to
the floor
this
this week
uh
you're
crippling
the potential
for protecting
things just
like this
and that's
that's a
real problem
and i think
you know
the clinton
administration
kind of got
caught up
in its own
propaganda
here
i'm just glad
we could be
a part of it
that's all
yeah really
unfortunately
government will
never
never be
limited to
the government
agents will
never be
limited to
complying
with their
own laws
um
you know
if backdoor
encryption is
passed
if you know
if this bill
is passed
later this week
i guess you
can talk more
about it
and how people
can call
the representatives
involved
uh
and
it involves
the uh
amendments
to the safe
bill
yeah
basically the
house commerce
committee is
uh going to be
meeting on that
this week
it's going to
require all
americans
provide the
government
uh
guaranteed access
to their
private
online communications
and business
transactions
uh and
there are all
kinds of things
going on
on the net
uh to protect
people against
this kind of
thing
a vote is
expected
september 25th
and uh we're
asking people to
call members of the
commerce committee
from illinois
representative rush
202-225-4372
representative shimkus
202-225-5271
uh and representative
haster
202-225-2976
um those are
now why do i have
members of illinois
here you know what i
think the boneheads
that sent this to me
are from illinois and
they only sent the
illinois representatives
okay you know what
call up call up the
house of representatives
and just ask for your
local representative
because i don't think
these people are
unless you're from
illinois i don't think
the two representatives
that sponsored this
amendment i think are
from georgia
the first two that
you'd mentioned
if you call their
offices to express
your concerns
they really don't
uh give a give a
damn about your
opinion unless you're
from georgia because
then your vote doesn't
count for them
so uh it's it's
recommended that you
uh say you're from
georgia if you're
calling them and
they'll ask you your
name and address too
so have a have a
georgia address and
telephone number ready
when you when you call
their offices because
otherwise they're not
going to take you
seriously or at least
have a have a
southern drawl or
something there you
go but uh the the
bill is is called
safe um what is it
safety through uh
safety and freedom
through encryption i
think is is is
yeah and it's being
perverted by this
amendment originally
it was a good bill
it's hr 695 yeah and
uh we're certainly
going to have more on
that and what happens
this week you might
want to watch c-span
to see what where
that goes the
amendment is tantamount
somebody used this
analogy tantamount to
having a a mandating
the uh the installation
of a tv camera or
microphones in every
new house or every
house in the home in
the country um that
would uh that would
have the ability or had
the federal government
the fbi would have the
ability to to switch
these tv cameras or
microphones on anybody's
house um at their
whim or ostensibly with
a warrant but they
wouldn't have to go
through any you know
telecommunications carrier
to actually accomplish
the the the monitoring
and uh if you're having
a private conversation
um using encryption this
basically if this if this
amendment passes to the
safe bill it will allow
the government to go in
there anytime they feel
like it uh ostensibly with
the warrant but who can
trust them with the fbi's
history and and sort of
uh um uh history of what
they've done with uh with
electronic surveillance
who's to trust the
government from uh you
know going you know to
the trouble of getting a
warrant before they
monitor people's
conversations i certainly
don't trust okay um now
uh pam you've got a link
to voters telecom watch and
then we're going to move
on to our the main topic of
the show tonight bernie i
want to thank you very much
for uh for stopping by
you're welcome thank you
okay um well we'll be in
touch on this on this topic
on other topics great all
right take care pam what's
the uh what's the link if
you guys want to read more
about the uh legislation you
can go to www.vtw.org that's
voters telecom watch or you
can go to democracy.net they
have all the details you need
okay now originally uh we
were going to devote the
whole show to a topic known
as spam um we got sort of
sidetracked by all this pager
stuff and the encryption thing
going on but uh we we are
going to devote the rest of
the show to this and to uh
to what it's well basically i
guess the best way to
describe it uh you're sitting
there on the internet trying
to uh use various things read
news read mail and increasingly
you're bombarded with all these
unsolicited advertisements over
and over again for uh ways of
making money fast to all kinds
of of sites to visit things you
have not asked for and with us
in the studio today is uh dylan
who is a new york city computer
consultant who has had a run-in
with the spam artists so why don't
you tell us your story and then
we'll uh we'll open it up to some
listeners yeah well this is uh
rather amazing to me that things
came to this uh i was working on a
project for a small company here in
new york uh and along with working
on the project uh it turned out that
about 25 percent of all the email
going into their system was what one
would call uh commercial unsolicited
email uh or spam and uh through
putting in filters for the email we
were able to cut out some of this
stuff that they didn't want advertisements
for uh sex websites uh pyramid schemes
where you mail somebody your name and
a dollar and they send you a list of
people that'll do the same and all
sorts of weird things that really work
i don't know i've never tried
imagine if we suddenly like you know
stop talking about whatever we're
talking about right now and just like
try to get people to send a dollar in
for a pyramid scheme and we just kept
doing it over and over again 24 hours
a day on bai you heard stuff like this
imagine how annoying that would get
that's what the internet is turning
into right and this is this is coming
into people's uh mailboxes uh there in
the network and the folks that that own
this particular network asked you know
what can we do about it uh my first
first reaction was well you know we'll
we'll filter this stuff out
unfortunately filtering is reactive
technology and you've got to you know
sort of have something to filter
against then you can figure out what to
filter uh then the people sending this
unsolicited email figure out oh well
you know it's bouncing back to us let's
try it a different way sort of like
rotating shield frequencies on star
track
and uh the the next thought was well
okay they're taking up uh bandwidth on
the company's network they're taking up
disk space on the company's disks and
they're taking up the company's employees
time which has some value to the company
uh so the one of these offending
parties was sent uh warnings via electronic
mail that should they continue to send
their unsolicited email they would be
billed for storage and distribution of
advertising materials on the network
uh they continued they were billed and
within two minutes of the bill being
faxed to them for storage of their
advertising materials on the network
they faxed back to to the company a
copy of a letter that they were sending
to the attorney general of the state of
new york demanding that the company be
prosecuted for fraud well let me just
take a look i've got a copy of it here
uh demanding that they be prosecuted
for uh fraud mail fraud and any other
charges that he would be willing to file
and it went on to further state in
addition you may want to check if they
comply with the state business license
guidelines and sales tax collection
authorities
this was the response that was received
from billing these people that were
were essentially uh sending collect junk
mail spam is just as if somebody were
to send you junk advertising mail via
the u.s postal service and you were
forced to pay to receive it you didn't
have a choice not to receive it and you
had to pay well the difference is when
you send something through the u.s postal
service you have to pay to send it right
if people don't respond you wind up
losing money so you stop sending it
whereas on the internet you can keep
sending things forever it doesn't matter
if a single person responds you're not
really losing anything and the person
who has to deal with it is the person
that has to store it on their computer
right and it uh somebody can send uh mass
mailings to thousands and thousands of
people millions of people uh all over the
world uh with a 10 or 15 dollar a month
internet access account and that one
particular message that they sent all
those people actually multiplies uh in
space because every person that gets it
gets their very own copy and so it ends
up taking enormous amounts of uh bandwidth
on the internet and enormous amounts of
disk space and the people that are
receiving the mail are generally the
ones paying for the bandwidth in the
disk space
does anyone actually read these things
i mean i see them everywhere all the
news groups i i see you know spam messages
every place i everybody i know who has an
account that has done anything with it
seems to be getting these things are there
people out there that are responding that's
making it worthwhile for them i can't
imagine that there are i know that uh the
law firm that initially started this whole
thing kantor and siegel uh got nothing but
complaints they got uh faxes of complaint
phone calls of complaint now kantor and
siegel that goes by that goes back a
couple of years that goes back a couple
of years yeah they were the ones that
first started doing this and they didn't
really make anything out of it uh until
they published a book that was essentially
how to make money fast on the internet
which told people to go out and do
exactly what they had done which they
didn't make any profit by but they they
profited by the book it was a it was a
bestseller almost overnight but i i don't
know anybody that reads the stuff myself
actually i'd like to know if anyone out
there does read that kind of stuff maybe
they could call us and explain just what
goes through their heads and if they've
really made a lot of money doing this
um so okay so they threaten you with
prosecution for for billing them for
using your computer space exactly so what
happened next um well it it seems that uh
the attorney general in the state of new
york uh uh has better things to do than
than deal with this kind of thing uh so
it's essentially uh a dead issue from that
point of view but it's just amazing the
audacity that somebody has that that they
uh attempt to fight uh what is really a
legitimate bill by turning around and
saying that well that business entity is up
to criminal activities when their activities
could really very easily be construed as
theft of services but it's it's very
interesting there was one large backbone
provider of the internet that was hosting
hosting the big five spam factories that on
friday i believe it was turned off three
of the big five i i heard something about
that including cyber promotions yeah cyber
promo has been terminated uh and uh two
others i'm i had it here a moment ago
uh integrated media promotions and quantum
communications inc on friday had their
access to the internet terminated by uh apex
global internet services who is uh who is the
provider that that they had to hook them
into the the backbone it may be because
apex finally got tired of the protests
people were showing up in front of apex's
offices protesting really yeah people were
sending mail to to uh apex email to apex's
headquarters uh every time they got mail
that came from somebody that got access
through apex i know i i myself wrote a
routine that every time i got uh a piece
of email that came from somewhere on the
uh apex network that was spam bounced it
right back to uh apex headquarters and said
kindly don't do this anymore so they may
finally been getting buried in would you
consider making a routine like that
available to the public oh yeah sure
everybody could do something just like
that absolutely i i certainly would make
it available to the public we uh we could
uh put it on your website that would be no
problem no problem there uh i got an
interesting piece of this kind of weird
because i didn't ask for this mail but it
it showed up anyway and uh it's it's
anti-spam but it's it was unsolicited
anti-spam i'm going to read this to you
and you tell me if this is legitimate
um announcing the windows 95 cancel bot
finally you control the usenet the
windows 95 usenet cancel bot will allow
us to kill all bs spam on usenet our
favorite news groups as well as protect our
domain names email addresses from being
misused by usenet spammers simply scan the
usenet and uh having this incredible
program do keyword searches and cancel
commands even while you're sleeping this
is the beginning to the end of spam erase
their ass forever it's time spam is no
more um have you have you heard about
things like this well i haven't heard
about that particular windows product but
there have been cancel bots on unix systems
for a couple of years for canceling spam on
uh the usenet news groups uh which are sort
of like the world's largest bulletin board
system that spread across many many
computers uh so i don't see why a clever
programmer couldn't write a write a cancel
bot for microsoft windows but these kinds of
programs it could be used for bad as well
as good you could cancel people you don't
like yes in in that particular in that
particular instance cancel bots can be used
to cancel all articles by a certain person all
articles with a certain subject uh whatever
uh back 10 12 years ago before the net got
anywhere near as popular as it is uh it was
largely uh a playing field where everything was
done by gentleman's agreement and people were
largely courteous and trustworthy and if
somebody overstepped the bounds of good
manners somebody would tell them and they'd
say oh okay well you know and can't do that
with millions of people wouldn't do that but
yeah it's it's turning into uh the same
environment as the uh neighborhood hoodlums
that hang out on the on the street corner and
uh uh have nothing to do now they're hanging
out on the internet with nothing to do do you
support outside authorities getting involved
in this would you rather see self-regulation
within the internet well outside authorities
getting involved has the downside of most
legislators don't understand the technology
they don't understand historically the way
things worked which really did work rather
well until the last couple of years
um it's it's unfortunate that in some cases
uh some uh entities have decided that they
would try to use this for quick profit
uh namely uh some of the spam factories and
even apex global internet services that
that has decided that they would be willing to
host the spam factories uh if everybody were
were willing to be reasonable human beings i don't
think there'd be any need for outside intervention but
as it is we may need something akin to the junk
facts laws to to deal with this but the
unfortunate thing there is that it's very easy
for spammers then to just move their operations
offshore fiber optic is here yes i am how
you doing hi uh your experiences with spam um i
deal with spam all the time um since uh i'm the
administrator of a uh a rather large uh web house
uh among other things and i i deal with uh with
spam constantly to make sure that people's mailboxes
aren't filled with it and they aren't wasting all
their time uh dealing with it um in this
particular circumstance not uh not only is
the um let me just describe a scenario you have
the spam coming in the spam is stored on the
news server it's wasting disk space on the news
server uh sorry mail server what am i saying
well it's news as well i mean yeah spam gets
but in this particular case okay uh spam coming
in over email it's stored on the mail server
okay until the people in the organization pick
it up now they're picking it up with eudora
and they're reading it on on their personal machine yes
yeah so not only is it wasting time and energy
over the t1 line it's going out to the net coming into
the particular company it's also wasting time energy and resources
going within the company from the mail host to each individual person's
machine do you think this could be like sort of a plot by hard disk
manufacturers but they get more space use all the
hard disk just to store things
somehow i think not i think we should turn an eye towards that as a
possibility so what do you do um i've i've been uh just trying to
ignore it and dealing with it reactively and doing a fairly good job
of it um from the administrator's standpoint
uh the last few versions of send mail have supported uh tcp wrappers
which uh those listeners that are familiar tcp wrappers is a tool that
came out of holland that's uh that can be used to wrap
so to speak various services like telnet and ftp
that are running on a server on the internet
and would only allow connections to come from certain hosts
uh so basically you block the offenders
yeah basically you block the offenders but more importantly the implementation
the way that send mail which is you know the server that
delivers and receives mail uh the way that it blocks the mail is uh a lot more
effective than simply blocking access altogether
if it blocks access altogether then the mail is more than likely going to
try to be delivered through a backup mail host or
however your your setup may be
the way tcp wrappers functions with send mail is that send mail actually sends
a smtp protocol message
back to the offending host
uh-huh
saying that it is not allowed to send the mail here
so it's not thing it's not making the other end think it can't deliver
because it can't reach it
okay but but the problem with that is supposing
there are people on that other host
that legitimately want to send you mail
that's a problem
let's say it's aol for instance
yeah a lot of people feel about that but there's there's a lot of spam coming
out of aol
yeah that means you won't be able to get mail from anybody
the only way that this is really of use
is with the obvious sites like cyber promo
and you know there's there's a cast of of about you know a couple of hundred
and you know that you're never going to get mail from anybody you ever want to
talk to from any of these sites
i'll tell you most of the spam i see doesn't come from cyber promo it comes
from sites that seem to have just been made up on the spot
yeah but what you got to do is look in the header of the message because they make up
the from and the to lines randomly
yeah because they think that you can't block it if they randomize the from and the to
well they can't control where it says the message connected from
the actual mail server that connected to you where you're receiving your mail
that information is still going to be in the header
and that's the site that you have to go by
and that site is either going to be a public site that stupidly allows mail to be relayed through it
or it's going to be a site that you don't ever want to get mail from in which case it makes it easy to block
in the case of sites that relay mail that shouldn't
in uh current and future versions of send mail
they're most likely going to make the default setting off
for whether or not mail can be relayed
is there a legitimate reason to relay mail
uh yeah in fact there is
if you're an internet service provider the number one reason to relay mail
is uh that you have clients
whose domain is not the same as yours
okay uh but in that particular case
all it takes is for the internet service provider
to spend an extra five minutes
and only allow mail to be relayed through it
from those sites
usually they're just either lazy stupid or ignorant
and they allow the whole world to relay mail through them
because it's a lot easier and they don't care
uh-huh so until all the isps get together
and say okay we're not going to let people relay mail through us
this problem won't go away
they can make it illegal it's probably not going to matter
no i i agree that making it illegal is probably not going to do anything
except get more regulations around us
which will probably come back to haunt us
yeah
but it's uh fiber optics right
it has to be that all of the internet service providers
and everybody that connects to uh
connects to the backbone at any of the peering points
uh is willing to reject the concept of spam
and not allow any of their customers to send it out
and uh uh everybody is going to have to say
okay we know this is a known spamming site
and we are going to not accept mail from them
uh there was a gentleman that was keeping a list of spam sites
publicly available on his website on the internet
who ended up having to take it down
because the big five spammers came after him
uh with their lawyers
uh saying that it was damaging their business
and it was damaging their reputations
okay well just for now for the record
and since our show gets archived on the net
for all time
who are the big five
okay well
uh three of the big five
give as much information as you feel like
okay
three of the big five are cyber promotions
uh who are based in uh philadelphia
uh quantum communication
you don't have a net address for them
uh well uh yeah
they're they're uh
but you can't get to them right now
because they just cut them off
right
but it's www.cyberpromo.com
i've seen that one
and they actually
sort of boast how they can get around
all these security things
and you can deliver mail to people
without them ever knowing who you are
right well that's what they say
but like fiber optic said
if you just trace back through the headers
right
you can find it
and that's how
that's how system administrators decide
who they're going to reject mail from
if spam starts coming in all
anew again
they say oh okay well
this is the new route they're taking
okay we'll block this route
until people start running into operating systems
i don't think it's really going to have much of an effect
because you know
only a couple of people who are sharp will do this
and everybody else will just sort of let it sit
you know
and i don't know if it'll have much of an effect
unless the word is spread about
who should be blocked
and who shouldn't be blocked
well anybody that's
that's running a site connected to the internet
that has a competent system administrator
uh should be able to do this
it's a question about five percent of the net right there
well unfortunately yes
a lot of my uh
a lot of my customers are
internet service providers
that really don't have a handle on the internet
so
okay number two
yeah
uh you've got integrated media promotions corporation
you've got
and i don't know what their uh
what their url would be
you've got quantum communications
inc
uh then you've got another outfit called
nancy net
nancy net
yeah
yeah
and then there's
llv
communications
in las vegas
uh-huh
and cte
who's also based in las vegas
and if you look at the
uh who is information
for llv.com
and cte.com
sure looks like the same
bunch of people
with two different front companies
uh-huh
yeah
and uh
that's that's where most of the spam comes from
that i've seen
uh-huh
what's the one
i think it's
i-e-m-m
something
well the i-e-m-m-c
is a um
an organization
that was founded by
these five
uh
spam companies
and apex global internet services
with the idea of promoting standards
and allowing
people to get off of bulk email lists
if they wanted and so forth
and uh
when you were able to get to the i-e-m-m-c's website
before uh
aegis
uh
shut off the access
oh they're part of aegis too
yeah
they're they're also
uh connected through aegis
matter of fact
their offices were in aegis's headquarters
really
and they've been evicted from aegis's headquarters
must have been quite a scene
must have been
uh
they had
a website that purported
that if you put your email address in
you'd be taken off of all these bulk mailing lists
um
a gentleman out in uh
california named paul vixie
uh
who has the domain vix.com
made up a bunch of email addresses
that were known only to himself
and his employees
not dispersed outside the company
never posted any email from them
never posted any news group
postings from them
uh
they didn't appear on any web
web pages
they were just
mailboxes in the company
for him to run a test with
he went to the i-e-m-m-c
uh
take me off your mailing list site
put in each of those
mail addresses individually
and the next day
started receiving spam
at all of those email addresses
that's interesting because
you had told me about this
in the past
and
i experimented with that
very same company
first of all i tried to uh
to get um
certain accounts off
mailing lists
it seemed to work
for the most part
there were
there were
ones that straggled through
but i have a feeling
it might be because
people weren't consulting
the list of
names to take off
i created an account
and
did exactly as that person did
to see if um
to see if this would happen
it's been a week
not a single piece of email
yet
so i don't know
well that's good
that that means that it's
you know
conceivably they've started
actually enforcing their
their policy
because the i-e-m-m-c
ostensibly had a policy
that to be a member
you had to respect
the block list
that they were collecting
right
uh
this was about three months
ago that paul ran this test
now i'm just curious
who holds that list
and that must be one
one heck of a list too
a list of people
that don't want to be on a list
right that list is is held
by the i-e-m-m-c
which is essentially
a consortium of spammers
uh-huh
and they hold the list
which is
i don't feel too good
about that
no no
nor do i
nor do i
uh
i asked
uh
a representative
of the i-e-m-m-c
a couple weeks ago
to just remove
everything
that was at
a particular domain
uh
one of my clients
didn't want to receive
anything in their domain
and
the response
that came back
from
via email
from this representative
of i-e-m-m-c
was
oh well
just go to the website
and put in all the addresses
now
you know
you're talking
hundreds of addresses
there for a small company
it's really impractical
uh
you know
but that was their response
212-279-3400
we're talking about spam
and uh
we only have about
ten minutes to take phone calls
so please
keep it on the topic
if you have any
questions
comments
or feedback
about this
menace
to the net
and communications
and all kinds
of other things
212-279-3400
let's uh
go to our first
listener phone call
good evening
you're on the air
um
hi emmanuel
yes
how you doing
um
okay
one second here
um
okay
yes
um
i live out in
omaha nebraska
okay
and i've noticed
something recently
in the us west
phone books
that's clean
of odd
you live in
omaha nebraska
so there's no way
you know what
we're talking about
tonight
absolutely not
because the real
audio episodes
take over a month
to get online
yeah well you know
we were supposed
to be on real
audio tonight
but uh
somebody fouled up
access to a machine
so we weren't able
to to get
to the right place
at the right time
but hopefully
next week
we'll get it
straightened out
um
okay will this
week's episode
be on then
so we can get
the server information
uh
it should be on
within the week
yes
um
just stay tuned
to the website
and you'll see
that way
but i'm gonna have
to ask you
to be very quick
because we
we are on a topic
here we're talking
about spam
in case you have
anything to say
about that
um
other than the fact
that i've
listened to your
shows and i hear
exactly exactly
with everything
on the comments
on spam
um
no the one thing
i've noticed
about us west
books is that
they stopped
putting the bell
logo on them
that is a
that is a shocker
no bell logo
on the us west
phone books
okay well
there's people
running out
to investigate
that right now
yes
uh
yeah you have
to realize
this is nebraska
there's nothing
happening
no no
well we get
calls from utah
too so we know
there's lots of
places where
that's happening
yeah um
i'm also hoping
that we can start
a 2600 meeting
here soon
uh-huh
well if you're
interested in
starting a 2600
meeting this
goes to anybody
listening in any
foreign city
uh all you have
to do is start
start uh
start having the
meetings you know
spreading the word
whatever way you
you can and then
simply mail us back
at meetings at
2600.com and
tell us how they
go and if we
see that you're
serious and the
meetings are
actually happening
and they're you
know people are
really showing up
then we'll print
it in the magazine
and publicize it
in other ways as
well um otherwise
you just have
people saying hey
i want to have a
meeting down here
on the street
corner and they
say it once and
they never go and
you know it's it's
it'll be there for
all time if we
you know did if
everybody said they
were interested
yeah well okay
thank you though
all right
thanks for calling
Omaha Nebraska
that's pretty cool
all right let's take
another phone call
good evening you're
on the air
hi uh yes the
original dr z
okay you called
last week
yes i did
okay and i have
an opinion on
everything as usual
okay what's your
opinion on spam
uh as far as
spamming i think
it's disgusting and
i think a lot of
the um uh major
providers including
aol um encourage it
in order to sell
their services uh
saying that you can
make money on the
internet by uh
offering you know
information or
whatever uh two
people at random
and you know
sending out mail
and uh i think
this should be uh
discouraged and
probably even
controlled
does aol actually
do that do they
tell people this
uh yes they do
i've had uh some
friends of mine uh
tell me that they've
gotten uh information
actually spam from
aol from aol
administration
from administration
not not from a
user on aol from
someone who works
at aol uh telling
them how they can
benefit by uh that
they they they can
uh actually uh cover
the cost of their
connection of their
con their uh connection
fee and so forth
uh by uh sending out
little uh things and
giving examples and so
forth um now i've
heard this from more
than one source uh
also there's uh other
ways of uh spamming
including changing uh
uh as mt as mtp servers
and uh and the like
which is illegal uh so
that even if you do
block someone from
spamming you on um on
a certain dns address
the mail will come in
through a different
one and there's no way
to get around that
fiber is that true
oh yes absolutely
i was saying it's uh
unless there's a
concerted effort from
internet service
providers oh yeah
oh yeah they'll they'll
they'll send you a uh
you know abusive uh
abuse of uh serve uh
service or something
like that and threaten
you but meanwhile you
can send out 10,000
messages and say hey
i'm sorry i set my
things wrong and that's
that they don't bother
you there are cd roms
being sold now with
with you know 250,000
email addresses on them
what do you do about
that well basically you
uh you pray that you're
not on there and um you
know there's there's many
ways yeah i mean you can
send you can you can
re-spam them but again
that's kind of self
defeating because it uh
hogs the bandwidth again
and um you know but but
in order to get rid of
these people you have to
you have to identify the
you know the primary
spammers uh the part the
primary uh promulgators of
the of uh of spamming and
uh overload them okay do
unto others so it sounds like
you you you advocate a
hacker solution to this
problem uh yeah yeah because
unless the gentleman's
agreement as you were
previously discussing before
unless the gentleman's
agreement is is um you know
is rendered uh that's the
only way to do it you're
going to have to outspam
the spammers and uh you
know for a while there's
going to be a bandwidth
drop and there's going to
be you know a lag and
overload and delays and
email but then the spammer's
going to get the idea
somebody's going to get you
know on the ball and uh do
something about this okay
well thanks for calling okay
thank you all right take
care i don't know you know
there's something about
becoming the enemy to fight
the enemy that kind of kind of
runs me the wrong way you
fight spam with spam you
think that's a solution i
don't know about that but
there was something that
paul vixie was doing with
uh with apex aegis which
was uh just black holing
their internet service just
announcing uh to all the
routers that make up the
backbones of the internet
uh telling them to route all
of aegis's traffic basically
to nowhere um so that they
weren't able to have uh so
that they weren't able to to
allow all the spam to go
through or much less internet
service for any of their
legitimate customers okay but
that kind of an action has to
remain in the hands of of
people not not government
officials right or lawmakers
because imagine that power
being able to to simply block
someone's attempts to you
know communicate in any way
well it can be used it can be
done right now by anybody
knows how yeah but those are
the people who know how not
the lawmakers you see and
that's that's that's the
difference there we want to
keep this technology in our
hands not handed away to to
somebody who's simply going
to you know abuse it for
their own purposes yeah
that's definitely true all
right squeeze in a couple
more phone calls good
evening you're on the air
okay you gotta speak when i
pick up the phone that's
that's the rule there good
evening you're on the air
all right quick question
what does spam stand for i
know how annoying it is i'm
not sure what the
letters are origins of the
word origins of the word
spam anybody know uh well it
comes from a monty python
skit in which there was a uh
in which there was a menu and
and every item on the menu
had spam in it uh repeatedly
sometimes you know that's
that's really where it came
from that's a different kind
of spam that's no that's
that's really where it came
from uh back in the back in
the 80s uh people that were
using usenet news groups
adopted spam as uh the name for
a posting that would go to 20
or more news groups generally
not anywhere related to the
same topic and the posting
would generally not have
anything to do with anything
on the news group and uh folks
remember this monty python
thing where you know it was uh
salmon and spam and bagels and
spam and spam spam spam and
spam and that's really spam and
egg okay well i think we got the
point i thought the m men
message yeah that it doesn't
stand for anything then okay
yeah i probably could stand for
something if we if we thought
it's a little ham in the can
yeah i know what's what that
kind of spam is that's what
they're referring to as good a
reason as any all right let's
see if we can uh we can get one
more call in good evening you're
on the air yeah hello yes go
ahead yeah well that's it uh
during the second world war i
guess it was that we had uh
rationing and uh speaking of
spam yeah i don't think you're
uh you're the perfect person to
speak about spam well i did radio
spam at one point it's a ham
product uh compressed ham you
know this is monroe he calls
every radio show for the last
what ten years you've called
every single radio show over and
over and over again what do you
mean every single one on bai on
bai right well i wouldn't say i've
called now let me make you're not
calling any other radio stations
you're you're not i called abc on
occasion and so on i called a
little uh elsewhere nyc but you
know they have screeners yeah and
they're screening that's not
because i've done anything wrong but
because i've done correct things
screeners screen i think he's
giving us an idea here well the
point is you know the screeners
you just brought it up yourself
about uh government uh screeners
you understand what i'm saying
uh-huh now let me ask you a
question you know have you ever
explained where the term mouse came
from uh for the uh instrument that's
used to uh uh you shall we say move
the the visor or whatever you call
that uh little this concludes our
special on spam for tonight
with that live demonstration thank
you very much for uh for calling in
um bill and any any any addresses you
want to give out for people who are
concerned about this sure if if people
want to uh learn more about how to
keep from getting spam themselves or
how to fight spam got uh three uh
urls here they can go to the first
one is spam dot abuse dot net the
second one is www dot clark dot net
slash pub slash r b e n n slash spam dot
html and the third one is www dot c a u c e dot org
that last one is the coalition against
unsolicited email okay don thank you
very much for coming in and uh good
luck in your fight thank you and our
fight too because it involves all of
us that's going to do it for us here
tonight uh another edition of off the
hook is history we'll be back again
next week who knows what's going to
happen between now and then in the
world of high technology but uh we'll
be back in one week to tell you until
then emmanuel goldstein good night
the telephone keeps ringing so i ripped
it off the wall i cut myself while
shaving now i can't make a cost
it couldn't get much worse but if they
could they would
come on
oh
We'll be right back.
For the anniversary of the assassination of Ernesto Che Guevara, celebrate his life at a public forum.
Come to Che, Legacy of a Revolutionary, on Saturday, October 4th from 6.30.