Ocean County Phone Punx Presents OCPP05 "putting the terror in terrorism" December 26, 1997 Contents Intro - Mohawk Payphone Profiles - Mohawk TDD's - Count Z3R0 Fun with Spam - Iceboxman editorial - The Death of Phreaking - Mohawk The Beige Box - Cap'n Nemo Busted in 97 - Mohawk Letters News MCI Worldcom Merger Intro-Mohawk 1998 already? Damn time goes by way to fast. Instead of releasing issues every month we've decided to keep the same format of every other month with a couple extra special issues. For example, we will have a January issue, then a February issue and an April issue. That will amount to about 8 or 9 issues a year. In this issue, we have three new writers with some really good articles. However, we still need writers and other staff. I decided to put bigger spaces between articles so if you want to look for a specific article it'll be easier to scroll down and get it. Also, due to the size of this issue, I took out the double spacing in the news, busted in 97, and MCI Worldcom merger sections. We have alot of plans for next year and 98 should prove to be very interesting. Payphone Profiles-Mohawk Last issue I told you about PNM plus. This issue I was gonna do something different but I'm gonna save it till next issue cuz I'm still waiting for some info on it. In this article I'm going to discuss some of the different types of payphones out there. This list is only a small number of them. Carlson Enterprises Personal Paypones Personal Payphones or tabletop payphones are phones for lower volume business where a normal bell style phone would not be cost effective. They look just like an ordinary desk phone but with a coin slot. These can also be used as a normal phone. They come in four different models. Model 707 price- $239.00 Local coin calls only, or long distance operator assisted calls Accepts quaters only Multiple area code local calls are programmed at factory Operator, ringer, and time limits set via dip switch on bottom Model 727 price-$259.00 Local coin calls only, or long distance operator assisted calls Choice of 25 and 20 cents charge for local calls Accepts nickels, dimes, and quarters Multiple area code local calls are programmed at factory Operator, ringer, and time limits set via dip switch on bottom Model 757 price-$369.00 Local and long distance coin calls Accepts quarters only 10XXX, 0+, and 1+ re-routing to your preferred OSP Fully programmable at factory per request at time of ordering Protection against hook-switch dialing and tone dialers LCD display for user friendly instructions Model 767 price-$399.00 same features as 757 Accepts nickels, dimes, and quarters General features PBX compatible no electical power needed gray color charge or allow free access to 911, 800, 0, 411 and 555-1212 restrict or allow 976, 900, 950, and 10XXX Local Call Only phones can be programmed to limit the call duration from 1-16 minutes inbound calls can be turned off control operator access control 1-411 and 411 access Protel 200BB+ Price-$1195.00 2 year warranty Features Patented Line Powered Technology No AC power required Reduced installation time Continued service during power outage Total Call Routing Flexibility Calls can be routed to most profitable IXC and OCP Expressnet Route Management-Protel's PC based phone management software Remote Diagnostics Including: Coin box full, Inactivity, Stuck Coin Complete SMDR for call auditing Coin box accounting Summary reports by call type Maintence/Collection Voice prompt in receiver stating coin box amount Acoustical fraud detection avoids network fraud schemes Prevents bill-to-payphone collect calls Polling security codes to prevent fraudulent access into the PC Convenience Features Corrects dialing errors Equal access compatible User adjustable volume control Clear voice prompts Instant credit for non-completed or interrupted calls Other Features Track 10XXX & 950 calls Complete Call Detail Reprots (CDR) Built in # translation and alternate routing of emergency numbers Optional Store and Foward capabilty Elcotel Series-5 price-$955.00 2 year warranty Features Line Powered Digitized human voice prompts Remotely downloadable operating system and site operational files Modem Telemetry for programming & cashbox/alarms monitoring Pre & User defined dialing macros for IXC and OSP call routing SMDR Call Diagnostic Events Recorder Anti-Fraud features Alarm reports (coin jam, handset, inactivity, cash box level) Options Card reader Cashbox alarm switch Electronic coin mechanism Volume control button AC/DC transformer (for sites with low line current) Payphone Automated Operator Function (PAOF) Olympian 5501 western price-$1205.00 2 year warranty Features Line Powered Circuit board enclosed in rugged aluminum housing Timed local coin calls Prevents Red Box fraud calls Adjustable initial rate Line polarity alarm & test Supports and features and functions of Series-5 Same options of Series-5 Supports three remotely configurable modes Modes Bright Mode Coin line operation, relies solely on C.O. intelligence for rating, routing, and answer supervision. No rate table maintence required. Hybrid Mode Coin line operation, allows selective use of C.O. of set intelligence for rating, routing, and answer supervision. Smart Mode COCOT line operation, relies solely on set intelligence for rating, routing, and answer supervision. TDD's-Count Z3R0 This is about how to operate tdd's and how to have fun with them. TDD's are phones for deaf people, they have little keyboards and telephone couplers on them. Often you can find TDD's in good hotels, airports, or deaf people's houses. If a deaf person wants to call you, they would go to one of these phones and dial the relay number of the state you're in and tell the operator where you want to place a call. If the number is local, then you'll be connected free-of-charge, if you want to call long distance, then you'll need to pay with a calling card, third-number billing or some other method. If you want to call a deaf person, then you would call one of the voice relay numbers and do the same thing. TDD's communicate without punctuation and have the caps on, so there are some commands you need to know: GA means Go Ahead; QQ means Question mark; SKSK means Hangup. OK, now to the fun stuff. First off, you don't have to have a TDD phone to use the service. There are 1-800 ansi relay numbers, so you can use your modem to call the California Ansi TDD and tell the operator to call anyone in California, and it don't cost you a damn thing! Also, TDD operators ANNOT censor you messages, they will repeat them word-for- word(most TDD operators are female, it's funny as hell to get a call at 2:00am with some lady telling me in a monotone voice, "Oh, baby, my ass is on fire for you, Come lick me where it smells funny." Thirdly, TDD's will connect you to any 1-800 number you want for free, have them call 1-800-FAT- GIRL for you! Lastly, since all of the relay numbers are 1-800, you can call your state number via ansi, have the operator call a voice relay number, and tell you're operator to tell the voice operator to call the number of one of your friends(he has his modem set on auto-answer) in the second TDD's state. Oh, the fun never dies! Here's a list of TDD numbers: 202-855-1234 District of Columbia TTY 202-855-1000 District of Columbia voice 212-219-1887 New York City Recycling Hotline 315-337-8489 Auto Attendant & TDD Mail 503-760-2212 911 Emergency in Portland, Oregon 617-849-5677 Massachusetts Lottery 800-548-2546 Alabama TTY 800-548-2547 Alabama voice 800-770-8973 Alaska TTY 800-770-8255 Alaska voice 800-367-8939 Arizona TTY 800-842-4681 Arizona voice 800-285-1131 Arkansas TTY 800-285-1121 Arkansas voice 800-735-2929 California TTY 800-735-2922 California voice 800-735-0091 California ascii 800-659-2656 Colorado TTY 800-659-3656 Colorado voice 800-659-4656 Colorado ascii 800-842-9710 Connecticut TTY 800-833-8134 Connecticut voice 800-232-5460 Delaware TTY 800-232-5470 Delaware voice 800-955-8771 Florida TTY 800-955-8770 Florida voice 800-255-0056 Georgia TTY 800-255-0135 Georgia voice 808-643-8833 Hawaii TTY 808-546-2565 Hawaii voice 800-377-3529 Idaho TTY 800-377-1363 Idaho voice 800-526-0844 Illinois TTY 800-526-0857 Illinois voice 800-501-0864 Illinois Spanish TTY 800-501-0865 Illinois Spanish voice 800-743-3333 Indiana TTY/voice 800-735-2942 Iowa TTY 800-735-2943 Iowa voice 800-766-3777 Kansas TTY/voice 800-648-6056 Kentucky TTY 800-648-6057 Kentucky voice 800-846-5277 Louisiana TTY 800-947-5277 Louisiana voice 800-437-1220 Maine TTY 800-457-1220 Maine voice 800-735-2258 Maryland TTY/voice 800-439-2370 Massachusetts TTY/voice/ascii 800-439-0183 Massachusetts voice 800-649-3777 Michigan TTY/voice 800-627-3529 Minnesota TTY/voice/ascii 800-582-2233 Mississippi TTY 800-855-1000 Mississippi voice 800-855-1234 Mississippi ascii 800-735-2966 Missouri TTY 800-735-2466 Missouri voice 800-253-4091 Montana TTY 800-253-4093 Montana voice 800-833-7352 Nebraska TTY 800-833-0920 Nebraska voice 800-326-6868 Nevada TTY 800-326-6888 Nevada voice 800-735-2964 New Hampshire TTY/voice 800-852-7899 New Jersey TTY 800-852-7897 New Jersey voice 800-659-8331 New Mexico TTY 800-659-1779 New Mexico voice 800-662-1220 New York TTY 800-421-1220 New York voice 800-735-2962 North Carolina TTY 800-735-8262 North Carolina voice 800-366-6888 North Dakota TTY 800-366-6889 North Dakota voice 800-750-0750 Ohio TTY/voice 800-522-8506 Oklahoma TTY 800-722-0353 Oklahoma voice 800-735-2900 Oregon TTY 800-735-1232 Oregon voice 800-735-0644 Oregon ascii 800-735-3896 Oregon Spanish TTY/voice 800-654-5984 Pennsylvania TTY 800-654-5988 Pennsylvania voice 800-745-5555 Rhode Island TTY 800-745-6575 Rhode Island voice 800-745-1570 Rhode Island ascii 800-735-2905 South Carolina TTY/voice 800-877-1113 South Dakota TTY/voice 800-848-0298 Tennessee TTY 800-848-0299 Tennessee voice 800-735-2989 Texas TTY 800-735-2988 Texas voice 800-735-2991 Texas ascii 800-346-4128 Utah TTY/voice 800-253-0191 Vermont TTY 800-253-0195 Vermont voice 800-828-1120 Virgina TTY 800-828-1140 Virgina voice 800-833-6388 Washington TTY 800-833-6384 Washington voice 800-833-6385 Washington telebraille 800-982-8771 West Virgina TTY 800-982-8772 West Virgina voice 800-947-3529 Wisconsin TTY/voice 800-877-9975 Wyoming TTY 800-877-9965 Wyoming voice 800-855-2880 AT&T National Relay TTY 800-855-2881 AT&T National Relay voice 800-855-2882 AT&T National Relay ascii 800-855-2883 AT&T National Relay telebraille 800-855-2884 AT&T National Relay Spanish TTY 800-855-2885 AT&T National Relay Spanish voice 800-855-2886 AT&T National Relay Spanish ascii 800-877-8339 Federal Information Relay Service TTY/voice 800-833-5833 Hamilton National Relay TTY 800-833-7833 Hamilton National Relay voice 800-688-4889 MCI National Relay TTY 800-947-8642 MCI National Relay voice 800-877-8973 Sprint National Relay TTY/voice/ascii 800-243-7889 AIDS Hotline 800-855-1155 AT&T Directory Asisstance 800-326-2996 Federal Information Center 800-544-3316 QVC Well kids, that's all for now and until next time, have phun, don't get caught, and if you do, you don't know me. Stay Phreaky, CountZ3R0 Fun with Spam-Iceboxman Sometimes, if you're subscribed to a list you will get posts from other lists. This can be very annoying to people subscribed and getting posts on a totally different subject, especially if the other list is a popular one that get a massive amount of posts to it. Here's how someone could go about doing it. You sign up for a free e-mail account such as hotmail (www.hotmail.com) or iname(www.iname.com). Of course, give them fake information, except for your E-mail address (yes, you have to have an e-mail address for this to work). If your really paranoid, sign up with another service and use real information, and then use that address to be forwarded to. It would look like this: iname.com--->hotmail.com--->your e-mail so that you can't be traced (Of course this is virtually untraceable by anyone getting annoyed by the misc posts). Let's use subscriber@iname.com" as our address for an example. "This is the netscape set up part. Instructions are in parenthesis." Then you go into netscape mail and change your identity to this new e-mail address (Choose Options-->Mail & News Preferences...-->Identity. Put your name as anything under "Your Name". Let's use "subscriber" as an example. Put the email address to send mail to add to the list that you want to annoy under "Your Email". Let's use "suckers@destination.com" as an example.) Make sure your server is a valid mail server (Choose Options-->Mail & News Preferences...-->Servers. Under "Outgoing Mail Server" Type your mail server's name. I'll use "mail.mydomain.com" as an example.) Now with netscape mail set up, go to "http://www.lsoft.com/lists/list_s.html" and look at a bunch of lists. From here choose the most annoying ones like sex ones and christian ones or something that nobody cares about like "how to fold army men out of gum wrappers" and subscribe to them all using subscriber@iname.com (your forwarding address) as your e-mail address. Now wait a day or two and make sure you are subscribed and getting email from all these lists. You may have to reply back to some of these list to tell them your really sure you want to subscribe. this is done as an effort so the people won't use another list as their e-mail address. Now, when all the lists are subscribed to then edit your forwarding address so instead of you're real e-mail use suckers@destination.com (the list you want to annoy). Now the loop should look like this: annoying list--->subscriber@iname.com--->suckers@destination.com In a week if not a few days, something will happen such as shutting down the list, everybody unsubscribing, or not accepting e-mail from your forwarding address, in which case you would get a new one. If you really want to annoy the list, get 3 or 4 email addresses and subscribe them to the same lists so that suckers would get about 3 or 4 times more E-mail. Have fun. editorial-The Death of Phreaking-Mohawk A lot of people have been thinking about the death of phreaking lately. They look at the way things use to be and compare it to the way things are today. They look at the goldenage of phreaking in the early 80's and they feel that we have things have been on a downward slope ever since. Let me clear something up, phreaking will never die. In fact, phreaking is probably more popular now than it has ever been. Phreaking in the future might just be reading old text files and thinking about what it must of been like or maybe history will repeat itself and another goldenage will emerge that will rival the one of the 80's. I doubt either will happen but you never know. However, if we want to keep phreaking as good as it is today if not improve it, we too have to change. Every day the telco's find new and better ways to thwart the efforts of phreaks everywhere. We have to let go of the old methods of phreaking and concentrate more on new methods. Redboxing is the reason 75% of people ever get into phreaking and it is probably the most talked about subject. However, the redbox is slowly phasing out. It won't be long until it becomes a thing of the past. We also have to stop relying on other people to do the work for us. Try to invent a new method of your own or at least try to improve on a new one. Even if you don't succeed you will probably learn something, and that's what phreaking is all about, learning. Also, try not to live your life on boxes alone. I've talked to people that could make every box ever made in their sleep but when I asked "why does that work" they had no idea. So try to learn about why a method works not just how. If enough people change their ways, phreaking should be ok. But what good is it if we all change and there are no phones? I'm not saying that phones are gonna disappear tomorrow but how much longer will a phone be just a phone. With phones being able to send email and computers being able to be used as phones will phreaking and hacking remain as too different entities in the future? It's interesting to think about and no one can say for sure. So will phreaking ever die? Well even if everything that has to do with phreaking disappears the spirit of phreaking will never die. The Beige Box-Cap'n Nemo The beige box is a modification to your phone that allows you to perform the functions of a Lineman's Headset. This lets you to hook up to someone's house and become an extension of their line. The device I am going to tell you how to build is actually a split-line beige box because it is made from a split phone line. I would advise that you read all of this file including the disclaimer before performing any actions outlined in this text. Supplies: 2 alligator clips (red and green) 1 6 ft. telephone cord 1 razor (Radio Shack sells a nice 11 piece kit) 3 inches of solder (optional) Soldering Iron (optional) A telephone (not portable) Construction: 1. Cut the phone cord in half. 2.Strip 8 inches of plastic casing off of one of the pieces of telephone cord. (Be cautious to not cut any wires inside of the casing) 3.Cut off the yellow and black wires that you have now exposed. 4.Strip about 1 inch of wire off of the ends of the red and green wires. 5.Twist the now exposed copper wires to form one wire on both the red and green wires. 6.Connect these wires to the alligator clips. (red and green respectively) 7.Solder all connections for more secure connections. (optional) 8. If you want 2 beige boxes then repeat steps 1 through 7 on your other half of telephone wire. Connecting: On the side of every office or house there is a small gray box labeled "Telecommunications Network Interface". You need to open this box. Depending where you live you will need either a flat-head screwdriver, a 7/16 in. hex driver, or a lock pick set. If it looks like you need a screwdriver and a hex driver it turns out that the hex nut actually opens a sub-box inside of the main one, so you will only need the screwdriver to open the box. When you open this box you will see 4 screws with colored wires attached. Clip your red alligator clip to the screw with red wires running to it, and attach the green alligator clip to the screw with green wires to it. Now plug in your phone to the phone wire. Note: The layout of the box may vary. Use: What this does is make your telephone a legitimate extension of their line. What this means is you can make phone calls, listen in on phone calls, and anything you would want to do on your home phone number. Here are some ideas: -Calling long distance free -Holding conference calls with other friends (0-700-456-1000) -Making a very large phone bill for someone (i.e. 900#s) -Making calls you wouldn't want traced to your house. -Eavesdropping Tips: -Do beige boxing at night or in a secluded spot. -When doing it at night bring a flashlight with a purple light filter on it. -Do not talk of doing this on BBSs. -Do this on your home until you feel comfortable doing it. -Do not beige box on a house more than two times. -If you want to be extra safe then wear gloves to avoid fingerprints. Busted in 97-Mohawk 1997 had it's share of people getting busted. This is one of the most comprehensive lists known to us and we did all the research ourselves. Our main goal in providing this section to you is to not only keep you up to date on current events but we hope you will realize how the people in this article got caught. That way maybe you will see what mistakes you are making so that your name doesn't appear in this section one day. GMU SCHOOL FILES LOST Accused ComputerHackers Arrested Computer hackers have invaded the databanks at George Mason University, destroying student and faculty files and sending derogatory messages about a school official.      Fairfax Police and the university have investigated 11 incidents of computer hacking since April. The intrusions mostly affect projects at the School of Information Technology and Engineering.      Last month, authorities arrested two George Mason students in several hacking incidents. Police said Robert Shvern of Alexandria installed a virus into the school's computer. Ryan Whelan of Centreville allegedly erased Shvern's messages to hinder the investigation.      Shvern is charged with computer trespassing, forgery and theft of services. Whelan is charged with being an accessory after the fact. How to catch a hacker: Follow the money By most measures, those responsible for the Citibank caper were world-class hackers - just really poor money launderers. When bank and federal officials began monitoring activities of a hacker moving cash through Citibank's central wire transfer department, they were clueless about where the attack was originating. Monitoring began in July and continued into October, during which there were 40 transactions. Cash was moved from accounts as far away as Argentina and Indonesia to bank accounts in San Francisco, Finland, Russia, Switzerland, Germany and Israel. In the end, all but $400,000 taken before monitoring began was recovered. The break came Aug. 5, when the hacker moved $218,000 from the account of an Indonesian businessman to a BankAmerica account in San Francisco. Federal agents found that account was held by Evgeni and Erina Korolkov of St. Petersburg, Russia. When Erina Korolkov flew to San Francisco to make a withdrawal in late August, she was arrested. By September, recognizing a St. Petersburg link, authorities traveled to Russia. A review of phone records found that Citibank computers were being accessed at AO Saturn, a company specializing in computer software, where Vladimir Levin worked. By late October, confident it had identified the hacker, Citibank changed its codes and passwords, shutting the door to the hacker. In late December, Korolkov began cooperating. Levin and Evgeni Korolkovone were arrested at Stansted Airport, outside London, on a U.S. warrant March 4, 1995. Unknown is how the hacker obtained passwords and codes assigned to bank employees in Pompano, Fla., and how he learned to maneuver through the system. Citibank says it has found no evidence of insider cooperation with the hacker. Hacker pleads guilty to stealing credit cards The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO - A computer hacker accused of collecting 100,000 credit card numbers off the Internet pleaded guilty before his scheduled trial. Carlos Felipe Salgado, Jr., 36, could get up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine when he is sentenced Nov. 25. He was indicted in May on charges that he gathered credit data from a dozen companies selling products over the Internet. The FBI arrested him following a sting in which he tried to sell the information to agents posing as organized crime figures, agency spokesman George Grotz said. Salgado asked for $260,000, Grotz said. Salgado's trial had been scheduled to start Monday. Instead, he admitted to four counts, including unauthorized access of a computer, trafficking in stolen credit card numbers and possessing more than 15 stolen card numbers with intent to defraud. NASA nabs computer hacker The Associated Press WASHINGTON - A Delaware teen-ager is under investigation for hacking his way into a NASA Internet site, agency officials say. NASA Inspector General Robert Gross cited the most recent example of a computer invasion of a NASA Web site as an example of how the space agency has become "vulnerable via the Internet." "We live in an information environment vastly different than 20 years ago," Gross said Monday in a written statement. "Hackers are increasing in number and in frequency of attack." In the latest case, the Delaware teen, whose name, age and hometown were not released, altered the Internet Web site for the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., according to the statement from the computer crimes division of NASA's Inspector General Office. "We own you. Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive," the teen's message said, adding that the government systems administrators who manage the site were "extremely stupid." The message also encouraged sympathizers of Kevin Mitnick, a notorious computer hacker, to respond to the site. Mitnick was indicted last year on charges stemming from a multimillion-dollar crime wave in cyberspace. The altered message was noticed by the computer security team in Huntsville. The NASA statement called the teen's hacking "a cracking spree" and said it was stopped May 26 when his personal computer was seized. Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's office in Delaware and Alabama are handling the case with NASA's computer crimes division. Teen recounts hacking into U.S. military computer The Associated Press ZADAR, Croatia - Nervously glancing at the desk where his computer was before police took it away, 15-year-old Vice Miskovic explained with a mixture of pride and bewilderment how he managed to hack his way into a U.S. military computer. "I used some of the hacking programs available on the Internet, adjusted them, and, with a bit of luck, managed to break into the computer system of the Anderson Air Force Base in Guam," Miskovic said last week. "It was a challenge," he said, smiling. "I was curious to see whether I could do it or not." Miskovic said he searched through the Anderson base files during the month of January, but whenever he wanted to download files, they would disappear. He got scared "because I didn't intend to destroy any files, I just wanted to see them," he said, adding that he assumed the files had self-destruction programs installed in them. On Feb. 5, Croatia's computer crime investigators put an end to Miskovic's search and temporarily impounded his computer. Current Croatian criminal law does not provide for punishment of computer crime. The Pentagon confirmed that Miskovic had gotten into Anderson base computers, but said he had not compromised any classified documents. When news about the teen-age hacker broke here last week, the small medieval Adriatic town was puzzled - and Miskovic's parents were shocked. Soon Miskovic - whose hacker code was "Intruder" - became known throughout Croatia. Nediljka Miskovic said her shy grandson has always been fascinated by computers. "He had no interest in new jeans, sneakers or girls," she said. "Day and night, he was hooked onto the computer." Computer hacker pleads guilty The Associated Press ST. LOUIS - A computer whiz deemed so cunning he could control almost any computer system has accepted a plea bargain for hacking his way into the secret files of two major communications companies. Christopher Schanot, 20, was linked to the Internet Liberation Front, a group of hackers who have claimed responsibility for some high-profile computer pranks and who decry the commercialization of cyberspace. In exchange for a reduced sentence, Schanot pleaded guilty Thursday to two counts of computer fraud and one count of illegal wiretapping. He faces up to 15 years in prison and $750,000 in fines at his sentencing on Jan. 31. Prosecutors said Schanot broke into national computer networks and had passwords to military computers, the credit reporting service TRW and Sprint. They gave no indication he tried to profit from his intrusion. His hacking caused security breaches that companies said cost tens of thousands of dollars to repair. The break-ins took place between October 1994 and April 1995, when Schanot was an honor student at a Catholic boys' school in suburban St. Louis. He vanished after graduating in May 1995. Authorities caught up with Schanot last March and arrested him at the suburban Philadelphia apartment he shared with a 37-year-old woman, Netta Gilboa, the publisher of the magazine Gray Areas. The magazine professes to explore subject matter that is "illegal, immoral and/or controversial." In April, Schanot was placed under 24-hour house arrest and ordered not to talk about computers. Originally accused in a five-count indictment, he pleaded guilty to charges surrounding break-ins at Southwestern Bell and Bellcore, a communications research company owned by seven regional telephone companies. Mike Schanot said his son made the plea bargain only after prosecutors threatened him with a wider range of charges. Attack on Web site leads to charges A hacker who engineered the cyber-hijacking of the world's leading supplier of Web addresses has been arrested in Canada on charges of wire fraud and faced deportation hearings yesterday. Eugene Kashpureff, co-founder of Alternic Inc., was apprehended outside Toronto last Friday after a month-long investigation by the FBI. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, acting on a warrant issued by the Canadian government, picked up Kashpureff without incident, a spokeswoman said. The charges reportedly stem from Kashpureff's virtual attack this summer on the Web site of Network Solutions Inc., the Herndon, Va., company that controls most domain names, which are used for Internet addresses. An FBI spokesman confirmed that Kashpureff was in custody on wire fraud charges, but declined to provide further details. Kashpureff, whose residence is listed as Belfair, Wash., this summer hacked into Network Solutions' computer system and redirected people trying to reach its address -- www.internic.net -- to his own site, www.alternic.net. He said he pulled the prank to protest Network Solutions' exclusive agreement with the National Science Foundation to assign and route traffic to the five most popular Web domain addresses -- .com, .org, .net, .gov and .edu -- for the past five years. Network Solutions charges $100 for each name registration. Ironically, Network Solutions' contract with the NSF expires on March 31, 1998. Network Solutions filed a civil suit against Kashpureff in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., and the case was settled in August. The court ordered a permanent injunction barring Kashpureff and Alternic from disrupting Network Solutions' Web addressand forced Kashpureff to issue an online apology to the Internet community. "Our problems with him are over," said Philip Sbarbaro, general counsel for Network Solutions. "We were not involved in any way in his arrest." But an associate of Kashpureff said Canadian immigration authorities contacted him a few weeks ago looking for Kashpureff, who reportedly fled to Canada in September. "They said he was wanted by the FBI for computer and wire fraud," said the source, who requested anonymity. He said he was shocked by the severity of the charges against Kashpuref. "There were no monetary damages and minimal inconvenience," he said. "This isn't murder. It was just silly high-tech high-jinks." But the Internet community takes Kashpureff's prank very seriously. "When someone tinkers with the Internet illegally, it is serious business that needs to be policed," said Michael Donovan, a lawyer for pgMedia, a New York-based domain name registry that is suing Network Solutions for monopolistic business practices. "It harms people's livelihoods and undercuts faith in the Net. He should be punished." Though most Netizens do not condone Kashpureff's protest, they agree that Network Solutions has a monopoly on dispensing top-level domain names. Network Solutions disclosed in July that it is being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department for possible monopolistic business practices. Busted: Digital detectives take byte out of computer crime One day last month, a half-dozen law enforcement agents in black bullet-proof vests trotted cautiously through a quiet North Sacramento neighborhood. Their target: a suspected "chop shop." Traditionally, these shops have been unmarked garages where crooks rip apart stolen autos for the valuable parts. But today's chop shops are just as likely to house computer parts and criminals busily cobbling together PCs for later resale through the local want ads. That's what these agents -- members of an elite squad of computer- savvy crime busters known as the Sacramento Valley High-Tech Crimes Task Force -- were after. Created last year, the group has earned a nationwide reputation for its digital detective work on cases ranging from chop shops to cloned cell phones to Internet child pornography. Law enforcement agencies from around the country often troop to Sacramento to learn from the group. Sen. Patrick Johnston, D-Stockton, this year even introduced a bill that would help nurture high-tech crime fighting units like Sacramento's elsewhere in California. The bill is on the governor's desk, though it had not been signed as of Friday. In last month's raid, agents entering the suspected chop shop discovered a stocky 33-year-old man and a silicon graveyard: Crunched keyboards stacked knee high. An elaborate network of surveillance cameras. Junked circuit boards. A credit-card reader, and thousands of black microchips scattered like crumbs around the carpet. Almost immediately, two members of the task force -- some of whom have engineering degrees -- pounced on the suspect's personal computer, humming quietly in the corner. Like a bloody knife or dead body, the agents know that computers can hide valuable evidence. They scanned the machine for booby traps, then prepared to haul it back to their "computer forensics" laboratory to examine. Sgt. Michael Tsuchida of the Sacramento County Sheriff's department surveyed the mess and shook his head. "I hope nobody has any plans for tonight," he chuckled. Computer chop shops are just the latest addition to the expanding realm of high-tech crime, a world in which thumbnail-sized computer chips can be costlier than gold chips and high-tech criminals are no longer limited to pimply-faced high-school hackers, but range from organized crime members in Armani suits to drug addicts in flop houses. In the North Sacramento raid agents found a suspected stove-top methamphetamine lab and several guns, including one that had been reported stolen, alongside the computer chips. "Computers have become so user friendly that even the most uneducated thief can use it to commit a crime," said Robert Morgester, a deputy district attorney with the Sacramento County DA's office who helped to create the task force. Regardless of who is doing it, high-tech crime carries a high price tag. A 1995 study by the accounting firm Ernst & Young found that computer break-ins can cost companies more than $1 million in losses. Cellular phone companies last year lost an estimated $650 million to crooks who stole wireless phone codes to talk for free. Sacramento is no exception. "The Sacramento Valley has become one of the largest manufacturers of computer components in the world," said Alberto Roldans, deputy district attorney in the Sacramento County office. "And we're seeing more and more high-tech crime." In 1996 the high-tech task force investigated 176 cases, conducted 117 searches, arrested 156 suspects and recovered about $9 million worth of stolen property, according to its annual report. The group's headquarters on Folsom Road is tucked away inside one corner of a windowless, crypt-like building that resembles a storage room more than a high-tech nerve center. The group is headed by Tsuchida, who has been with the Sheriff's Department for 22 years. Tsuchida, unlike nearly every other member of the task force, admits he barely knows how to turn on a computer. "I'm a computer dummy," said Tsuchida, adding with a wry smile, "You'd be surprised how much low-tech detective work it takes to solve high- tech crime." The proof hangs behind his desk: plaques honoring him as detective of the year award from the Sheriff's Department as well as the law enforcement officer of the year for Northern California. On technical matters, Tsuchida calls on his stable of computer-savvy cops on the task force. Detective Michael Menz of the Roseville Police Department is a self-taught programmer who hasbeen tinkering with computers since about 1975, when personal computers were being built by hobbyists as kits. Menz patrols cyberspace much the way a beat cop would patrol a neighborhood. A wizard at computer forensics and the Internet, he spends hours online working undercover, loitering in chat rooms with suspected pedophiles or cyberbars with hackers. To do this, Menz keeps several Internet accounts, each with different user names and identities. "It's hard to put yourself in the mind set of a pedophile or a 14-year-old hacker," said Menz. "You've got to listen to how they talk, the kind of lingo they use." To make himself more believable, Menz watches TV -- lots of it -- from "Saved By The Bell" to MTV. This undercover work occasionally pays off and produces incriminating evidence that can be used in court. "Sometimes the bad guys will come out and say, 'Here's a stolen credit card number. Don't tell anyone where you got it,'" said Menz with a smirk. The team's Folsom Road digs also contains its computer forensics lab, one of the few in California. Computer forensics is a new, cutting edge area of law enforcement that allows police to extract powerful and often damning electronic evidence against criminals. The task force members are experts at it. "Just think, what do regular people keep on their computers? You have private e-mail. You keep your address book. You may keep your financial records," Tsuchida said. "Well, criminals are no different." The group has a clearinghouse for seized computer gear as detectives in other units routinely lug over computers they've retrieved on busts to see whether they contain incriminating evidence. "The task force is invaluable in the investigation when it comes to computer access," said Lt. Robert Kraft of the Sheriff's Department's narcotics gang division. "They break the password codes and access the information we need for seizing assets or getting evidence for a crime." Probably 70 percent of the computers they examine contain incriminating evidence, said Special Agent Fred Adler, a former Motorola engineer now with the FBI. Adler is the team's computer forensics guru. When they encounter a computer at a crime scene, a computer forensics expert like Adler first disconnects the telephone line from the computer modem so nobody could sabotage evidence from a distance before they've had a chance to get it. Then the person checks for booby traps. Criminals have been known to rig their computers to wipe out any potentially incriminating data if the proper shut-down procedure isn't followed or password given. "We've found bombs hardwired to computers, so that if you hit a button it goes kabloomy! -- there goes the computer, the evidence and the investigator," said Morgester. Finally, they make an exact duplicate of the hard drive to avoid contaminating the original hard drive, which might make any evidence they find inadmissible in court. To make sure they always get admissible digital evidence, Adler and other task force experts are teaching other cops how to handle computers when they come upon them at a crime scene. "We've seen case after case where you have law enforcement agents who know the computer was used in the crime and still leave it behind. That's the equivalent of going to a murder scene, finding a dead body, seeing the bullet in the head and not taking the gun," Morgester said. Part of the problem, said police, is that most beat cops don't know what to do with a computer when they find it. A 1995 University of California study found that 40 percent of police professionals received no formal training on computers, and another 20 percent received less than two hours. "If it had been a knife, the police would have taken it. If it had been a gun, they would have taken it. But a computer? Their thinking is: How do you dust a microprocessor for prints?" Tsuchida said. By contrast, the FBI recently estimated that 90 percent of criminals will be computer literate by the year 2001. "If you go into any prison, what do they teach you how to use? A computer," Morgester said. To illustrate how important it is for beat officers to become more computer literate, Tsuchida likes to tell the story of one case involving a Bakersfield teen who was using the Internet to persuade people to meet him in person, then robbing them when they did. The Bakersfield police were the first to nab the teen, but when they searched his house for evidence, they left his computer. Later, Tsuchida's team was called in to help because some of the crimes occured around Sacramento. When forensic expert Adler examined the hard drive, he found evidence the teenager may have been involved in mail fraud as far away as Pennsylvania. Police agencies are so hungry to learn this digital detective work that they've come to Sacramento from as far away as Ottawa, Canada. Next month, the task force is putting on a training seminar in South Lake Tahoe for police officers around the country. Already, it's nearly sold out. Besides inexperience by some officers, another problem faced by investigators is money: High-tech crime is expensive to investigate. "You can't fight crime with a 486 (CPU), if the bad guys are using Pentium IIs. It takes a hacker to catch a hacker," said Tsuchida. Each computer forensics job, for example, requires investigators to make an exact duplicate of the confiscated computer's hard drive. To do this, they need a hard drive as big as the one they're working on. These days a typical hard drive might run several hundred dollars. Tsuchida often turns to the local high-tech industry for help and works hand in hand with companies such as Apple, Hewlett Packard, NEC Electronics, Packard Bell, Intel, Air Touch Cellular, and AT&T Wireless Services. These firms often provide hard drives for the task force's computer forensic work, free cell phone use or the money for controlled buys. Despite this help, there's fear in law enforcement circles that as the bad guys grow more technologically savvy and well-equipped, law enforcement departments will be unable to fight back. When the task force was formed last year, it had more than 10 members from various laws enforcement agencies in the surrounding counties. Today, the group's ranks have been cut nearly in half as short-staffed local agencies pull their people off the task force and back home. For Tsuchida, this means lots of late nights for his squad and some tough decisions about where to deploy his troops. "I know of three or four places like the chop shop we hit the other day," he said, recalling the North Sacramento raid. "But I just don't have the officers to do it." The digital detectives may be in for a long, tough fight. "For a lot of the sophisticated criminals, money is no object," said Lt. Kraft, the narcotics detective." Computer Hacker Must Pay Restitution ASSOCIATED PRESS GREENEVILLE, Tenn. -- A computer hacker must pay $40,000 in restitution for intrusions into the Air Force Information Warfare Center and other classified defense computer systems. Wendell Dingus also was sentenced Monday in federal court to six months of home monitoring. Federal prosecutor Neil Smith said Dingus will be liable for restitution for time and efforts involved in tracking hackers. Dingus was sentenced for a series of intrusions into the computer in 1995. He admitted he used a program installed by telephone modem transfer in a Vanderbilt University computer to gain log-in passwords to Air Force and NASA computers. Nabbed in Gates Death Threats Billionaire computer software wizard Bill Gates was threatened with death unless he paid out $5 million in an amateurish extortion plot, officials said yesterday. Computer hacker Adam Pletcher, 21, was arrested May 9 in the Chicago suburb of Long Grove, where he lives with his parents, and charged with extortion, federal prosecutors said. He was freed on $100,000 bond and is due to appear in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Thursday for arraignment. According to court documents, Pletcher sent four letters to Gates, beginning in March, threatening to kill the founder of Microsoft Corp. and his wife, Melinda, unless payment of at least $5 million was made. "The writer cautioned Gates not to notify law enforcement and that if Gates did so, the writer could kill him with 'one bullet from my rifle at a quarter of a mile away,' " court documents say. The last letter told Gates to pay a specified amount of money into a foreign bank "to avoid dying, among other things," the court papers say. The first letter was intercepted at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Wash., by corporate security officers, who contacted the FBI. Agents then used an America Online dating service specified by the author of the letters to track down Pletcher, described as a loner who spends much of his time in front of his computer. Authorities said they treated the threats seriously but did not believe Gates' life was ever in danger. "We generally think this was a kid with a rich fantasy life, just living that out," said Tom Ziemba, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Katrina Pflaumer. Pletcher is being sued by Illinois authorities who say he operated a fraud scheme over the Internet. He also is being investigated for allegedly using the Internet to sell counterfeit driver's licenses, the FBI said. Teen Hackers Don't Cover Tracks ASSOCIATED PRESS BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- Five teens were smart enough to break into a computer security program to obtain credit card numbers - then naively had merchandise bought with the stolen numbers shipped to their own doorsteps, police said. Police said the five juveniles -- including a 15-year-old who is already attending college -- solved online security encryption to steal 20 to 25 credit card numbers from Minneapolis residents. The young hackers used the card numbers to buy thousands of dollars' worth of merchandise, Sgt. Jim Ryan said. "They were ordering stuff on credit cards, and people would see these purchases on their statements," Ryan said. "All were pointing to a couple of addresses in Bloomington." "They got the credit card numbers by hacking into an Internet shopping site and also from a dry cleaner where one of the kids worked," Ryan said. Police said they recovered computer scanners, monitors, computer games, car stereos, cellular telephones and other electronic equipment at the suspects' suburban homes earlier this month. Police also accused the teens of defacing Bloomington Kennedy High School's World Wide Web page with pornographic photographs. The five juveniles may face felony theft charges, which could be brought as early as next week after a formal charge is presented in juvenile court. Letters Out of all the letters we get, we seem to get scams the most. Keep sending them in because June will be our next scam issue. Your letters will be reprinted in the the letters section and the best of them will be featured in the June issue. But don't send in just scams, send your questions, comments, stories,suggestions, responses to another letter, etc. In your letter be sure to include your name or handle so that we can identify who sent the letter. If you do not include your handle or name we will use your user name of your email address. <>=editor's response From:~LoGikphear~! This is my fuckin' weird story! Well one night I was phreaking. So I popped out my handy redbox and went down to a public phone. (don't ask why I went down to a public phone and not a bell, I must have been really tired! dammit!) So I put a nickel in the payphone to break the mute control, then I played the flowing red box tones, 25.......25.......10.....5 (don't ask why I played them I just experiment a lot!) so nothing happened so I hung it up. And like a 1 dollar and 50 cents popped out, it was working like a greenbox, so I being the figure it out kinda guy I thought to my self what the fuck!?!?!?!?!? So I did it again and again, well I used all the money I got, to rent videos at the video store right in front of the payphone! Then I went home, the next day I tried it again......in the day, and I found out it only works in the day! Well this is my weird ass story!!!!!!! From:Anonymous Hello, are you tired of nigger blatherings? "Fuck you whiteys" they say. I don't appreciate it. I am tired of the niggers. Us white people are not going to take it anymore. For this reason FUKNIG has released a series of videos to educate people on the plight of white people and the chains placed on them by niggers. We will teach you ways of dealing with niggers. For example the next time you are at burger king and a nigger is serving you like the slave it should be you should ask for its manager and tell the manager about the problems you are having with the nigger. If you do this right and the nigger did act improperly the nigger will get fired. You can learn about the problems with niggers like Al Sharpton or Clarance Thomas. Al Sharpton is a horrible man and Clarance Thomas is a rapist. Learn where to complain about Clarance Thomas. Also we will teach you how to protest legally. These videos show you the most effective places to protest like outside of nigger churches and at nigger funerals. It explains the best way to protest near the whitehouse. Learn how to protect your women from nigger rapists. All this for only $39.95. Thats right! What is that I hear? You think I'm cheating you? Well, how about it if I throw in a picture on Martin Luther King for use on your dart board? That is OK, but the price is too high? Come on I have given you so much already. OK I will lower the price to only $35.95 but not a penny less. What is that I hear? Still too high? OK, how about if I lower it to $29.95. OK then $29.95 it is. But only for the first 100 orders. After that the price goes back up! From:johnny quest Hey what's up I was wondering if you had any credit card numbers or other codes to make free calls. From:Stranger Also, here's a scam for ya... you may have heard this one before, I just heard it somewhere myself, although I can't remember where. First, get a group of friends and go to a Burger King. Go up to the counter and order a raw whopper. When they give you shit, just remind them of their slogan, "Your Way Right Away!". After a while of convincing, they will give it to ya. Take it, and leave. Go down the street to another Burger King. Walk into the store, and throw the raw whopper on the counter saying that you just got this in the drive thru and almost took a bite from it. This works best in the middle of lunch or dinner rushes because its busy and in case they check the register receipts to see if anyone ordered a whopper in the past few minutes at the drive thru, there is a better chance that someone did. You will get a complete meal for everyone in your group. (If they dont you could always sue em, but I guess thats getting a little greedy.) From:Count Z3R0 Sup, I'm a phreak in Central IL(217), and just wanted to give some help and let you know that I liked the page. OK, first off in OCPP#1, there was an article on scaming VMB's. It is a pretty good article, but you missed one thing. Alot of major companies' 800 number's will take you to the voice-mail automated system. From there you can crack mail-box #'s & pw's, like you talked about, but also in big co.'s they have a PBX hidden in the atomated VBM system...you can usually reach these from the first operator prompt by hitting *9, #9, or simply 9....if you can't find one there, then access your cracked VMB and listen at the box editing prompt for a Public Branch Exchange(or PBX) option, if there's no option there then try the *9, #9, or 9 technique. Whew, second off, In Ocpp#2 there was an article on scams to pull... My friend and I have a good one that works... HOW TO GET REALLY CHEAP CAR INSURANCE First, pick a really cheap insurance company. Go apply for insurance, after they accept you, pay the first month, then cancel(be sure you have the insurance card before you cancel). Keep the card around, don't toss it or give it back to the company, keep it in your car and you have free insurance for the next 6 months. PS...Don't worry pigs can't catch you unless you get in a wreck. When they check your insurance card they just look at the experation date. Well, that's all I gotta say... OCPP News "more news, less chopper" Comdex 97 Pager let's you control your car Yahoo! hackers threaten to unleash virus British Telecom courts GTE Microsoft-Scotland plant robbed Comdex 97 LAS VEGAS (Nov. 18) - Who needs a home computer to hook up to the Internet? Suddenly it seems cooler to go online using technology built into a home telephone, television set - or even the family car. Just ask the makers of the latest gizmos angling to take a piece of the Web from the desktop PC. While the technology is still evolving, making Internet access simpler and more portable could help convert the remaining people who have yet to get wired - which so far is most of us. The flurry of products, some still in the experimental stage, fought for attention amid the clutter of more than 10,000 new items displayed at the week-long Comdex show that opened here Monday. Among them were plenty of tiny hand-held computers that enable people to go online from remote locations, using wireless modems. But Samsung Electronics, a unit of South Korea's Samsung Group, has another idea. It introduced its Web Video Phone, which looks like a fancy home telephone - except that it lets people make calls over the Internet while transmitting a live video of themselves. Users also can surf the Web, exchange electronic mail and conduct financial transactions. The sleek device combines a telephone, a built-in video camera, 5.6-inch touch-sensitive screen, a slide-out keyboard and a slot for swiping your bank or credit card. To make a call, the user starts by touching the screen's video phone icon, and dials the number on the phone pad below. The user obviously must phone someone who also has Internet access - through either a computer or another Web Video Phone. But people also can make calls across regular phone lines. Making calls across the Internet costs the same as a local call, saving on long-distance and international rates. But there generally is a delay in hearing the person's response, which can make for a confusing conversation. Also, the image that is transmitted appears jerky. Other problems need to be worked out. During an attempt to make a call on Monday, the screen suddenly went blank as the Samsung demonstrator apologetically explained that the machine had been used for too many hours. But the simplicity of the device got an enthusiastic response from some Comdex attendees, who also lauded its ability to ''read'' special bank cards to pay for Web purchases. "It takes what we're already doing and makes it simpler for everyone," said Daniel Basse, a U.S.-based technology manager for Japan's Matsushita. While several companies are working on similar devices, Samsung claims to be the first to show one and expects to start selling the Web Video Phone by next summer for under $1,000, said Charles Yum, a technology manager for Samsung Electronics America Inc. Samsung hopes to convince Internet service providers to sell the phone as part of the monthly service they sell to consumers. An experimental car from IBM, Delco, Netscape and Sun Microsystems takes the idea of unfettered Internet access even further. The auto, which incorporates the latest speech recognition technology, includes built-in screens that enable passengers to cruise the Internet. Moreover, riders can use their voices to command the on-board computer. It even talks back. Say ''Read stocks,'' and the computer lists stock quotes out loud. But a marketable product could be years off. Key to the car is a special antenna built into the roof to receive Internet signals from satellites. Based on military technology, the antenna is supposed to point in the direction of the satellite as the car moves, but the technology is another 3-4 years away, said Richard Lind, director of automotive electronics development for Delco Electronics Corp. Still, the technologies further a concept pioneered by Web TV, which was bought by Microsoft Corp. last spring. The device enables couch potatos to access the Internet from their television using a remote control. The latest advance to Web TV was shown at Comdex. Now, viewers can simultaneously see their favorite TV show and a Web site in different parts of the TV screen. The idea is to connect the TV with related Internet information, creating an active program guide that accentuates television. Such innovations could be necessary to convince people to use these alternate ramps to the Internet. Forrester Research estimates that sales of Web TV and similar devices won't reach 1 million until the year 2000. But the Cambridge, Mass. research firm predicts that by 2002, improvements by manufacturers will convince 14.7 million households to connect their TVs to the Internet, and 9.2 million to have Internet-connected screen phones. Pager lets you control car Locked your keys in the car? Lost your car at the mall? No problem. Motorola plans to unveil a new paging device Wednesday called CreataLink that could be a boon for forgetful motorists but a headache for customers behind on their car payments. Using one-way paging networks, CreataLink can remotely lock or unlock a car door, honk the horn, flash the lights and start or kill a car engine. And it's inexpensive — about $100 for the pager, $50 to install it in the vehicle and $25 for unlimited paging for a year. "They have an inexpensive way to provide a lot of convenience for motorists" says John Hoffecker, head of automotive practice for the consulting firm A.T. Kearney in Detroit. Here's how it works: A customer dials an 800-pager number and enters the code to identify the vehicle. The customer then enters another secret code to activate functions in the vehicle. The customer then selects from a list of about 10 functions, from locking the doors to killing the engine. Motorola says CreataLink will be in car alarm stores and car dealers in two weeks and it may soon be available at Circuit City, says Allan Spiro, Motorola's marketing manager. Spiro says at least two rental car companies want to install the device because customers often lock keys in the car. And car loan companies want to use CreataLink to force car owners to make car payments. Loan companies could send owners several warnings by honking the car horn before cutting off the engine. The engine would not be shut down while the motorist is driving. But when the motor is turned off, a finance company could use CreataLink to make sure it doesn't restart until the owner makes a car payment. "The finance companies are becoming our hottest customers," Spiro says. Yahoo! hackers threaten to unleash virus NEW YORK - Hackers broke into Yahoo!, the Internet's most popular site, demanding the release of an imprisoned comrade and threatening to unleash a crippling computer virus if he is not freed. Computer security experts were skeptical of the hackers' claim that they had implanted such a virus. The hackers, calling themselves PANTS//HAGIS, got into Yahoo!'s World Wide Web site Monday night, leaving a digital ransom note. Yahoo! is a computer directory widely used for searching the Internet. The note appeared briefly in place of the Yahoo! home page, preventing people online from using the search engine, which got 17.2 milllion visits in October. "For the past month, anyone who has viewed Yahoo's page & used their search engine, now has a logic bomb//worm implanted deep within their computer," it read. "On Christmas Day, 1998, the logic bomb part of this 'virus' will become active, wreaking havoc upon the entire planet's networks." "The virus can be stopped. But not by mortals." The note said an "antidote" program will be made available if hacker Kevin Mitnick is released. Mitnick was indicted last year on charges involving a multimillion-dollar crime wave in cyberspace. Diane Hunt, a spokeswoman for the company, said the message was up for only 10 to 15 minutes and a few thousand people saw it. "We immediately took action to see the extent of the damage and moved to correct it," she said. "And about that virus? There is, in fact, no virus." Jonathan Wheat, manager of the Anti-Virus Lab at the National Computer Security Association, said it is at least theoretically possible to exploit security flaws on the Internet and implant such a virus. But he said he doubts this group of hackers - already known to security experts - pulled it off. "That's pretty much ridiculous," agreed Jamonn Campbell, an information security analyst at the association. Wheat said there was little reason to be concerned that the popular Web site was hacked. "A lot of Web sites get hacked constantly," he said. He said that while Yahoo! is a high-profile site and should be expected to have better security than most, "no site is completely hack-proof." British Telecom courts GTE NEW YORK - British Telecom, on the rebound after MCI jilted it, has opened preliminary merger talks with phone giant GTE, USA TODAY has learned. Such a deal - though smaller than a BT-MCI combination - would give the British phone carrier a much wanted stake in the $200 billion-a-year U.S. telecommunications market. BT also is considering a double acquisition. Just as WorldCom simultaneously announced plans to buy MCI and a small local phone company, Brooks Fiber, BT might make a bid for GTE and a smaller carrier, such as Teleport Communications or Intermedia. Despite the talks, BT continues to keep its options open. It also has held talks with two regional Bells: Bell Atlantic and SBC Communications. Bell Atlantic CEO Ray Smith recently met with BT Chairman Sir Iain Vallance at BT offices in Britain. And while it is not clear whether BT officials have yet met face to face with SBC Chief Executive Ed Whitacre, BT strategists have explored the idea of a combination. "We are talking to a number of companies in North America about possible future partnerships, but we will not sign any deals until the MCI-WorldCom deal is closed," BT spokesman Jim Barron says. GTE officials did not respond to requests for comment on this story. While BT's U.S. strategy is still taking shape, it might fall rapidly into place. A decision could be made during the first quarter of 1998. Talks with GTE - focused on how the companies might work together as opposed to specific terms of a deal - already have taken place at the highest level. GTE Chief Executive Chuck Lee met with British Telecom officials at the U.S. company's offices in Stamford, Conn., the week after MCI accepted an offer from WorldCom. GTE appears to be favored over the others for several reasons. There are cultural and technological similarities between GTE and BT. GTE's interactive cable TV service, broadcast in Florida and Texas under the Americast name, is similar to BT services in Britain. And GTE has some of the aggressive marketing style that BT was hoping to find in MCI. GTE has signed up more than 1 million long-distance customers, most at AT&T's expense. "GTE and BT have had discussions in the past. They are familiar with each other. There are open lines of communication," says Scott Cleland, director of the Precursor Group at Legg Mason Wood Walker. He said an alliance with a Bell was less likely because the Bells can't offer long-distance service in the USA. Microsoft-Scotland plant robbed REDMOND, Wash. — Masked gunmen broke into a Microsoft plant in Scotland last week and stole an estimated 200,000 certificates of authenticity, 100,000 CD-ROMS and computer equipment, Microsoft said Tuesday. The robbers bound and gagged three employees and locked them in an office during the Nov. 10 break-in at the Thompson Litho Ltd. plant in East Kilbride, Scotland. Microsoft said the certificates of authenticity — which are packaged with all software sold to computer manufacturers — could be worth up to an estimated $16 million if they are attached to counterfeit Windows 95 operating system-based products. Microsoft said it was alerting software distributors and resellers to be on the lookout for the numbers that were on the stolen certificates. The company said the gunmen escaped with the stolen certificates and other products before the bound employees were able to free themselves and trigger an alarm. The company said the stolen CD-ROMs include programs in various languages, such as Windows 95, Office 97, Windows NT 4.0, Encarta97 and several Microsoft games. MCI Worldcom Merger GTE stays on hold with MCI NEW YORK - GTE Chairman Chuck Lee is weighing a possible hostile takeover bid for MCI in the event WorldCom's $37 billion acquisition begins to unravel. GTE had no comment. But Lee has made it clear to colleagues that if WorldCom's share price falls to the point where it undermines the value of its takeover offer, he wants to wade back into the action with an improved all-cash deal, likely in the ballpark of $45 a share. "I don't think GTE is out of this at all," says Tom Burnett, editor of Merger Insight, an independent newsletter for institutional investors. "They must be licking their chops watching the market action in WorldCom stock." WorldCom shares have fallen almost 10% since CEO Bernard Ebbers' first $30 billion bid for MCI Oct. 1. WorldCom stock closed Monday at $30 15/16, down 2 3/16, as investors expressed concern with the hefty price the Mississippi telecommunications upstart is paying for MCI. At $51 a share, MCI is selling at more than 11 times 1997 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) or more than 45 times next year's expected earnings per share. Under the terms of Monday's agreement, WorldCom's all-share offer loses value if its average stock price falls below $29 in the 20 days before the acquisition is expected to close, in six to nine months. MCI shares rose 4 5/8 to $41 1/2, well below WorldCom's bid, reflecting investors' concern that the WorldCom bid could be in trouble. Not only are WorldCom shares vulnerable to recent market turbulence, but the company has a full plate trying to integrate not only MCI, but acquisitions of CompuServe and Brooks Fiber. There also are continuing concerns about the performance of MCI's local telephone business and its impact on WorldCom's performance. Arbitrageurs, who make a living betting on the likelihood of mergers, say the real value of WorldCom's offer lies somewhere in the low $40s per share, after discounting for risk tied to WorldCom's share price, the time it will take for the deal to close and potential regulatory headaches. If GTE did nab MCI, it could be expensive. GTE would have to pay WorldCom a $750 million breakup fee, plus a $465 million reimbursement for the breakup fee WorldCom paid British Telecommunications, which had the first deal with MCI. MCI WorldCom sounds new call Wonder why WorldCom would pay $37 billion for MCI? Because the merger, announced Monday, will create the first and only communications company of the future. MCI WorldCom will be, by far, the largest player in a new wave of communications built on Internet technology. Established telecommunications giants - such as AT&T and BellSouth - are stuck with too much of the old technology built for voice conversations. Over the next few years, communications will shift dramatically toward the kind of network MCI WorldCom will own. In other words, it's near the end of the road for the 100-year-old Ma Bell-type of network. To use an analogy from another industry, this could be like the days when the personal computer tore down the mainframe computer powers. "Internet technology is the most important development in communications since the telephone replaced the telegraph," says James Crowe, a former WorldCom executive who is now a venture capitalist. Into that scenario rides MCI WorldCom. In a little more than a year, WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers has bought major Internet carrier UUNet and bought the physical networks behind CompuServe and America Online. That alone has made WorldCom the biggest hauler of Internet traffic. Now it will add MCI, which carries 40% of Internet traffic. The merged company will own the world's biggest network built on digital packet switching technology, which is used for the Internet. True, MCI WorldCom will be the world's second-biggest voice long-distance carrier, behind only AT&T, and a growing challenger in the local phone business. But that's about the present. MCI WorldCom is about what comes next. "WorldCom is explicitly assembling the communications company of the future," says James Moore, analyst with GeoPartners Research. "That's the design." It may seem arcane, but the two types of communications technology are very different - as different as train tracks and roads. The shift from one to the other will have a huge impact on the communications industry and on users from corporations to consumers. Reed Hundt, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, puts it this way: "What we need is a data network that can easily carry voice, instead of what we have today, which is a voice network struggling to carry data." Ever since the telephone's invention, communications networks have been built primarily to connect two people who are talking. So first, the connection had to be smooth and natural, without delays or interruptions. Second, from the early days, the means of switching calls was expensive. At one time, it took roomfuls of human operators; later, it was done by clunky and costly mechanical switches. The cheap part of the system were the lines. So, if you follow the economics, the system was made to take advantage of cheap lines and avoid expensive switching. That system, called circuit switching, is the basis for the phone networks. Circuit switching connects one party with the other through one, dedicated pipeline. Today, that pipe might be a series of lines owned by different companies, but it's still one fixed set of resources opened up for your conversation. For quality, it's first-class - like having a road built just for you to drive on. Economically, the burden is on the line, not the switch, which only has to connect the call in the first place; then, it's done. But circuit switching wastes the resources of the line. For instance, during silences in a phone conversation, the line is empty. And that's becoming a major problem. The economics have shifted.Switches are now computers and computing power has become extremely cheap. Now the lines are expensive, especially digging up streets and buying rights of way when building new lines. MCI will lose $800 million this year building local phone networks, and the majority of that goes to the lines. On top of that, thanks to the Internet, data traffic is flooding communications networks. The Internet is growing 100% a year. Today, voice conversations are still a bigger part of overall communications traffic, but that's changing at light speed - especially since very rich data, like video, is starting to be transmitted over the networks, and video gobbles up hundreds of times more capacity than a phone call. Forrester Research +predicts that by 2004, voice will be just 1% of communications traffic - a little burp among the Web pages, videos, software, transactions and business information zooming around the networks. Changing economics That's where the Net's packet switching comes in. It flips the economics, wasting switch resources and jamming as much as possible into lines. Increasingly popular Internet phone calls are a good example of how packet switching works. Your computer uses a phone line to connect to an Internet access company's switch, called a router on Internet networks. When you talk into a headset plugged into your computer, your voice is turned into tiny digital packets, each about 200 bytes. Each packet gets a digital label that says where it belongs with respect to its neighboring packets and where it's going. Once the stream of packets hits the first router, they are dispersed. Complex calculations tell each packet the most efficient route to go. The packets from that single conversation might flow four or five different ways. Clumps of your packets will be put into a wire or fiber-optic line among other, unrelated packets - all crammed in to use all the capacity of that line. On their way, the packets might go through 20 or 30 routers. At the other end, a computer reads the labels and reassembles the packets in their proper order and feeds them to the other party - all in a fraction of a second. There are some disadvantages. The route is not first-class. Packets can get lost or delayed. As Internet phone users will testify, the quality does not match a regular phone call. But the quality is improving quickly and is expected to catch circuit-switched networks. And the cost advantages are enormous. Computing power will continue to get cheaper, pushing costs lower. By contrast, the cost of the lines - especially building new ones - is going up. Already, Crowe figures, the cost of sending a CD-ROM worth of information across the country is about $1 on the Internet and $27 over a public phone network. Packet switching is why Internet phone calls to another continent can be essentially free. New breed of rivals So MCI WorldCom would be the one and only giant of packet switching. There are other important companies in that arena, such as start-up Qwest Communications. Sprint is a major player in packet switching and in traditional phone networks. But MCI WorldCom is biggest. MCI and WorldCom continue to build high-capacity data networks in cities and for carrying long-haul Internet traffic. "We're confident we'll have a company that is growing in the 25% range, which is phenomenal, compared with other companies in the marketplace," Ebbers says. Meanwhile, AT&T, GTE and the regional phone companies are deeply entangled in circuit switching. Their financial structure, their billing systems, even their cultures are built around that technology. Author George Gilder writes of the phone companies: "They incarcerated their capital and personnel ever more inexorably in million-ton cages of copper wire." Like the mainframe computer companies of old, they'll have a hard time changing. On the other hand, MCI WorldCom is not a sure thing, either. While some believe the company is the result of Ebbers' brilliant master plan, critics say it's an accidental leader that now must figure out where to go. "This is more about financial engineering than business sense," says Eric Greenberg, founder of Silicon Valley Internet Partners. Further ahead, packet switching is likely to make communications so cheap, it will turn into a low-margin, commodity business, says Don Tapscott, technology author. MCI WorldCom will have to create new kinds of higher-priced services to make good money. "It's like we're jockeying for the precondition to be able to get to that," he says. Even if that's the case, MCI WorldCom has an important head start. "Another technological shift could make WorldCom the next AT&T," says analyst Bryan Van Dussen of The Yankee Group. "That is clearly the risk WorldCom is absorbing in buying MCI." MCI accepts WorldCom takeover bid NEW YORK - MCI Communications Corp. agreed Monday to be bought by WorldCom Inc. for $37 billion in what would be the largest corporate merger in U.S. history. Boards of both companies unanimously approved the agreement after WorldCom sweetened its offer by more than 20%, ending a takeover battle for the nation's second-largest telecommunications company. The new company will be called MCI WorldCom and expects to have more than $30 billion in annual revenue next year. WorldCom's bid leapfrogged a competing $28 billion all-cash offer from GTE Corp. and also beat out a $24 billion merger agreement MCI had with British Telecommunications PLC. Talks with GTE continued through Sunday, MCI Chairman Bert Roberts Jr. said in a news conference in New York. "GTE is a fine company ... We didn't dismiss it lightly," Roberts said Monday of the rival offer. Nevertheless, he added, "MCI has made the best possible choice with this alignment with WorldCom. The two companies have complementary strengths." British Telecom, which will receive $7 billion in cash from WorldCom for its 20% interest in MCI, also agreed to the deal. That gives it a profit of $2.25 billion on its MCI stock. In addition, British Telecom will be paid $465 million because MCI broke its previous contract to merge with BT. WorldCom also would assume $5 billion in MCI debt. The deal would eclipse the largest U.S. merger so far, a $25.6 billion marriage between Bell Atlantic Corp. and Nynex Corp. that was completed in August. The combined MCI WorldCom would be a telecommunications behemoth selling a full range of services, from local and long-distance to Internet service to 22 million customers in the United States and 200 other countries. As such it would fundamentally alter the telecommunications landscape, and also speed up merger talks by other companies adapting to changes in federal rules for competing in long-distance and local service. WorldCom, currently the No. 4 long-distance phone company, upped its bid to $51 a share in stock for each of MCI's shares, from $41.50 a share early last month. Details were announced by the two companies Monday morning. As the deal moved forward, WorldCom's president and chief executive, Bernard J. Ebbers, said the companies found new ways to save money beyond those considered when WorldCom first proposed its brash takeover bid. "We have been able to identify significantly greater synergies," he said when asked to justify the higher offer by WorldCom. Executives said the additional savings would come from such areas as fees each of the companies pays the other for completing overseas calls. After studying MCI operations for the past month, for example, WorldCom said it found a combined company could save $500 million a year in such access fees, up from an original estimate of $150 million. Any deal would require approval from government regulators. The warring bids had seemed lavish for MCI, which grew from a startup mobile radio company more than three decades ago to become the fiercest challenger to AT&T Corp.'s once-solid monopoly on long-distance phone service. But the company has a unique position in a business that has undergone enormous regulatory and technological changes the past two years. A federal law intended to force more competition in telecommunications has touched off a spate of attempts by the industry's biggest players - not all successful - to buy their way into each other's businesses. MCI, more than other players, is in a unique position to take advantage of those changes, particularly new opportunities in local markets. MCI has been spending billions to build local networks of fiber-optic cable to handle calls in more than two dozen cities so far. That contrasts with plans by No. 3 long-distance company Sprint and AT&T to lease lines from local phone companies and then resell them to customers. MCI also is a leader in selling long-distance service to large companies and currently gets more than half of its revenue from big businesses. It has made MCI enormously attractive to companies such as GTE, a hybrid local and long-distance company, and to WorldCom. Both are attempting to expand into a range of communications businesses to take advantage of the regulatory reform. Under the agreement, MCI's chairman, Bert C. Roberts Jr., will become chairman of MCI WorldCom, and WorldCom's chief executive, Bernard J. Ebbers will be president and chief executive. "We have aligned ourselves with a management team and employees who share our entrepreneurial spirit and continue to pioneer competition in our industry," Ebbers said. WorldCom is counting on big cost savings to make the deal worth it. It wants to slash $2.5 billion in costs in 1999 and $5.6 billion three years later. Another $2 billion a year would be saved in capital spending. British Telecom still holds 75.1% of Concert Communications Services, a global telephone joint venture it created with MCI. British Telecom has an option to purchase the remaining 24.9% of the venture, but said it was not sure whether it would exercise that option or try to work with WorldCom. The company would not disclose the price it would have to pay to get all of the venture. "This agreement clearly gives an immediate benefit to our shareholders and retains both BT's ability to meet the needs of customers and the flexibility to pursue an aggressive global strategy with a strong U.S. presence," said the British Telecom chairman, Sir Iain Vallance. British Telecom says it has been approached by several smaller U.S. telephone companies that might be up for sale but it would not identify them.