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                          Issue #1 - Page 11 of 13 
     



Stalking/Harassing an Online Service
------------------------------------
by kleptic <kleptic@grex.org>

Nearly everyone has heard horror stories about the internet. Pornography
abounds, mentally deranged perverts stalk innocent victims while posing as
women or children, hax0rs lie in wait to steal your credit card numbers.
Sounds scary, right?  That's why so many families flock to online services
instead.

Unlike the freewheeling Wild West spirit of the internet, online services are
more like private clubs. Although nearly anyone can get in, the online service
enforces its own rules about what you can and cannot do. Break the rules and
you risk being thrown out!

If you detest censorship (like I do), avoid the online services. If you think
that an online service's restrictions are great ways to protect your children,
think again.

--------------------------------
CENSORSHIP AND PEDOPHILES ON AOL
--------------------------------

America Online, the most popular online service, prohibits its members from
using obscenity or transferring pronography through its services. In theory,
this sounds perfect for families with children. in practice, these rules are
enforced as often as politicians take pay cuts. And it's precisely because AOL
seems safe for unsupervised children that it has become the perfect online
stalking ground for pedophiles.

-----------------------------
HOW PEDOPHILES STALK CHILDREN
-----------------------------

If you're horrified at the thought of a pedophile contacting your child on
AOL, pull out your modem and cancel your membership now. Doing so will
guarantee that no pedophile will find your child on AOL, but it will also deny
your kid access to "AOL's many useful resources." You have other options.

AOL offers a parental control feature that allows you to selectively block
portions of the service from your child. However, unless you know what
portions to block, this feature won't be of much use.

Chat rooms, where members can type messages to one another in real-time, are
AOL's most popular stalking round for pedophiles. Because talk in chat rooms
happens instantaneously, without supervision, as soon as one kid in Boston
types a message, children in Seattle, Houston, and Chicago can read that
message and respond to it. But chat rooms are like costume parties-people often
mask their identities, including age and sex, which means that the kid from
Boston might be a middle-aged man.

Typically, a pedophile will enter a chat room geared toward children, such as
a homework helping chat, a teen chat, or even a teen sex chat room. After
watching the conversations and perhaps typing a few messages of his own, he
looks for a victim to target. At this point, the pedophile has no idea whether
a particular nickname belongs to a real child or an adult pretending to be a
child (wouldn't that be funny?). 

To find a suitable target, the pedophile directs a few innocent remarks toward
several other chat room members. The responses can help identify which
nicknames belong to adults and which belong to children (misspellings and
simple language are the most common giveaways). After focusing on nicknames
belonging to actual children, the pedophile is ready for the next step.

Chat rooms offer two ways to communicate with others: public and private
messages. Public messages appear on the screen for everyone in the chat room
to read. Private messages can only be read by the person they are addressed to
(for those idiots that dont already know that). 

Once a pedophile has identified nicknames belonging to children, he sends a
private message to one or more of his chosen targets. Usually these private
messages ask more personal questions, such as age, location, favorite foods,
hobbies, stuff like that. During this stage, the pedophile tries to gain the
child's trust and friendship.

Eventually, the child may have to leave the chat, so the pedophile arranges
another time when they can meet in the room again. Because many children
think they have found a new friend, they often readily agree. As the pedophile
gains the trust of the child, he'll start asking more personal questions to
determine where the child lives, what his or her parents do for a living, and
when they might be out of the house.

After several weeks or months, the pedophile may suggest meeting in person,
even if it means that the pedophile has to fly to another city to meet his
victim. Because the child may still be unaware of his new "friend's" true
intentions, he or she may give otu personal information such as a home address
or phone number.

Because pedophiles don't want to meet their potential victims parents, they'll
play off a child's desire for secrecy. When arranging a place and a time to
meet, they tell the child, "Don't tell your parents where you're going."
Depending on the child's relationship with his or her parents, thie child may
balk and tell his parents anyway, or he may go along with the pedophile's
suggestions as a way to rebel against his parents. After all, the idea of a
secret meeting with a new friend can be exciting.

Of course, pedophiles rarely meet most of their intended targets. Either the
child stops using AOL, gets bored with his new "friend," or becomes suspicious
and breaks off the relationship. But pedophiles can be patient, and whether it
takes one or one hundred tries, they're willing to continue stalking chat rooms
for children-because they know that eventually they'll find one kid gullible
enough to believe their sweet promises.

------------------------------------
PROTECTING YOUR KIDS FROM PEDOPHILES
------------------------------------

The best way to protect your child from pedophiles online is to supervise their
online activities and turn on AOL's parental controls to block access to chat
rooms.

To help friends find one another online, AOL offers a "Buddy List." You list
your friends in your list and the moment any of them come on AOL you're
notified.  

Of course, online stalkers can also use this feature too. Once a pedophile has
visited a few chat rooms, he can put all the names of his chosen victims in his
own buddy list. That way if your child connects to AOL at the  same time the
ped is online, the pedophile's buddy list notifies him so he can send a
message to your kid. By using a buddy list , a pedophile can stalk fresh
victims in chat rooms while lying in wait for previously targeted victims as
well.

To further protect your kid from pedophiles, turn off the buddy list feature to
prevent your child's nick name from being put on anyones list. Although this
effectively prevents your kids friends from using the buddy list to contact
each other, it also prevents any pedophiles from knowing when your kid is
connected to AOL. (Just make sure that if you turn off the feature, your kid
doesn't turn it back on. Kids are smarter then adults when it comes to
computers.)

-------------------
TRADING PORN ON AOL
-------------------

AOL's rules state that you cannot transmit obscene or pornographic material
through its services. Theoretically, this makes AOL safe for kids and familes
to use. Realistically, expecting AOL to enforce its rule is hopeless.

Connect to AOL 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you'll be able to find
chat rooms where people are engaging in cybersex or swapping porn files. Don't
be fooled by AOL's public image as a family-oriented online service.

People trade pron over AOL by visiting a chat room and asking "if anyone would
like to swap pics." Once 2 members agree to trade, they simply e-mail the
pictures to the other user.  

---------------------------
HARASSING AN ONLINE SERVICE
---------------------------

AOL, and Prodigy have all made their share of blunders over the years. Besides
AOL's history of censoring e-mail, CompuServe once pulled the plug on an entire
internet newsgroup because the German government considered them obscene. In
their earlier history, Prodigy censored e-mail as rigorously as AOL, causing
widespread dissatisfaction among it's members.

Given the constand, clumsy, and often unnecessary actions of online services in
the interest of protecting their services from pron, obscenity, or just plain
naughty words, it's no surprise that many people have lashed out against them.
Here are a few examples.

-----------------------------------
GENERATING FAKE CREDIT CARD NUMBERS
-----------------------------------

One of the most popular ways to harass an online service is to create a bogus
account using a fake credit card number. Because online services want members
to sign up as soon as possible, the moment you type in a valid credit card
number, you can start using the entire online service right away.

One legal way to get a free account on an online service is to sign up with one
credit card, cancel your account when your free trial period is over (typically
one month or a fixed amount of usage, such as 50 hours), then sign back on to
the same service with a different credit card number. This method works as long
as you have different credit card numbers.

Because most people don't have multiple credit cards, they do the next best
thing and create their own credit card numbers instead. Credit card companies,
such as Visa or American Express, create their credit card numbers using a
mathematical formula. You'll note that credit card numbers are rarely similar,
and you'll never find two people with credit card numbers that differ by only
one number because of the possibility of erroneously charging one person for
another persons purchases.

Rather than try to gues the mathematical formula used to create valid credit
card numbers, just use a special credit card-generating program. These programs
create credit card numbers using the same mathematical formula used by your own
credit card company. 

When you sign on to an online service with a credit card number created by a
card generating program, the online service just checks to make sure the number
is valid according to the credit card's mathematical formula. If the number is
valid, the service lets you create an account. The service won't verify that
the  credit card number is valid for a day or two, so until the service catches
on to yoru fake credit card number, you'll have rein-absolutely free! And, if
you use a fake name address, and phone number, the service will never catch
you-unless they trace your call.

The moment the online service finds out that you're using a fake credit card
number, they can ask the phone company to trace your call from their dial-up
connection phone number to your home. As long as you use fake credit card
numbers sparingly, the service probably won't take the time to follow up.

-------------------------
CAUSING CHAOS WITH AOHELL
-------------------------

Using an account created by a fake credit card number allows you to break the
online service's rules with little risk of getting caught. As a result, many
people who create fake accounts also use special harassment programs as well.

Perhaps the most famous harassment program is one named AOHell. Written by
ex-aoler member who calls himself Da Chronic, AOHell is designed to wreck havoc
on AOL.

AOHell works with AOL's software. Once you're connected to AOL, you load
AOHell and up pops a floating window that lists its features in a simple
push-button interface-features that range from the extremely useful to the
downright illegal.

You can use AOHell to encrypt your e-mail; send a mass e-mailing; e-mail bomb
an account by flooding someone's mailbox; or automatically deliver a canned
reply to instant messages. You can even use AOHell to block instant messages
from particular individuals.

If a particular person grates on your nerves in a chat room, yo ucan fight back
with AOHell. Click one button and AOHell draws a gun pointing at a stick figure
with the name of the person publicly displayed for all in the chat room to see.
Click another button and AOHell scrolls an ASCII drawing of a raised middle
finger.

For another type of prank that borders on the illegal, AOHell offers a fake
"forward message to" feature, specifically designed to let you send e-mail to
AOL administrators, falsely claiming that someone is writing e-mail to you that
violates AOL's rules. To give you an idea of this feature's capabilities,
AOHell provides an example fake forwarding message that purports to be from
AOL's president soliciting a user for shameful acts involving bodily fluids.

Although users are repeatedly warned that they should never give out passwords
or credit card numbers to anyone online, many people stil don't realize the
danger. AOHell offers a password/credit card fisher that lets you take
advantage of them. Just enter a chat room, click on the fisher button, and
AOHell sends an official looking message to the person of your choice, claiming
that AOL's billing department needs that person's password or credit card
number.

Obviously, this AOHell feature can be exploited for illegal use; but now that
you know it exists, it should remind you never to give out important
information like passwords and credit card numbers while online.

Although AOHell was one of the first and most popular online harassment
programs, copycat programs have popped up with names like AOIce, CompuDaze,
ProdigyKiller, Apocalypse Now, AOTurkey, LameProd, CISHack, RIPPClaw, and
America Flatline. Most of these programs offer similar features, although some
require a password to use them.

-------------------------------------------------------------
FINDING CREDIT CARD GENERATORS AND ONLINE HARASSMENT PROGRAMS
-------------------------------------------------------------

Credit card generators and onlien harassment programs can be found on a hacker
web site; but because AOL and other online services frown on their
distribution, these hack sites tend to disappear with alarming regularity. Most
manage to last for a while before AOL (or another online service) threatens the
web site with legal action.

To read and write messages to others interested in using, harassing, or
criticizing an online service, browse through one of these Usenet newsgroups:

alt.aol
alt.aol-sucks
alt.oneline-service
prodigy.classic

------------------------------------------
WRITING YOUR OWN ONLINE HARASSMENT PROGRAM
------------------------------------------

Rather than use an online harassment program written by someone else, many
hackers prefer to write their own. The most popular programming language used
to write online harassment programs is Microsoft Visual Basic. Not only is VB
inexpensive, but it allows ANYONE with little programming experience to write
a Windows program quickly and easily. Once you have a copy of VB, you need to
know how onlien harassment programs work.

Most online harassment programs use two special VB Commands called AppActivate
and SendKeys. The AppActivate command loads and runs another program. In the
case of an online harassment program, the AppActivate command is used to load
the communication program for AOL or Prodigy.

The SendKeys command mimics a person typing at the keyboard. For example, the
SendKeys command can type a phrase, press CTRL-X, or choose menu commands from
any program defined by the AppActivate command.

The combination of the AppActivate and the SendKeys command lets you write a
VB program that can type keystrokes into another program as if you were typing
them yourself.

At the simplest level, an online harassment program is nothing more than a
fast, automated typist that lets you raise havoc on the online service of your
choice. If you were a fast typist, you could harass an online service just by
typing insults or commands yourself; but because most people can't type at the
speed of light, they let an online harassment program do the typing instead.
That way they can quickly pop in and out of various forums or chat rooms on the
online service, cause havoc, and disappear just as quickly as they arrived.

As a result, online services can never defend themselves against an online
harassment program. The only way to prevent an online harassment program from
working is to prevent legitimate users from typing on their keyboard while
using an online service.

Many companies sell commercial and shareware add-on programs designed for AOL.
These add-on programs use the same features as online harassment programs, but
instead of letting you type insults or e-mail bomb another member, add-on
programs automate other features for your convenience, such as deleting e-mail
quickly or responding in a chat room with a prewritten response. If AOL
implemented a way to prevent online harassment programs from working, it would
also keep these AOL add-on programs from working.

Once you understand that an online harassment program is nothing more then a
program that automates typing in another program for you, you're ready to write
your own online harassment program. But rather than create something from
scrath, programming (like homework) is always easier when you copy and modify
somebody else's work instead. 

Of course, online harassment programs rarely offer their source code. If you
find a particular online harassment program that you want to emulate, your best
bet is to decompile the program, wich can recover the actual VB source code.

To decompile a VB program, you can by a program called the VB Decompiler. This
program dissects any program created by VB and generates the source code for
you to examine. By using the VB Decompiler, you can decompile your favorite
online service harassment programs, such as AOHell, to see how the program
works. Once you ahve generated the VB source code, you can copy or modify the
source code and create your own online harassment program for your own use.
(But if anyone asks, you didn't hear that from me.)

--------------------------------------------
PROS AND CONS OF HARASSING AN ONLINE SERVICE
--------------------------------------------

If an online service catches you harassing its members, their reaction can be
as simple as cutting off yoru real (or fake) online service account, or as
drastic as having you arrested for credit card fraud, illegal computer use, and
whatever else.

But don't think that harassing an online service is just for bad guys trying
to spoil other people's fun. Many self-proclaimed online vigilantes haunt
online services specifically to stalk online stalkers such as pedophiles. The
moment they find a pedophile trying to recruit a child in a public chat room,
they use an online harassment program to send a warning to the offender, send
a mail bomb to flood the offender's e-mail box, or just boot the offender in
the ass.

An online harassment program is a tool. Abuse it and you can make the lives
of legitimate online service members miserable. But use it to defend children
against pedophiles, and you may be considered a hero.

The End
