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From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: AT&T Sourcecode: Poison!
Message-ID: <4342@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 25 Feb 90 01:54:19 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 127, Message 2 of 7


The news on the street is that there is more to the Jolnet stink than
has been previously revealed --

We're told by a deep-throat type that AT&T is on the war path about
their software, and that 3b2 people in particular are targeted for
'counseling' and whatever corrective action is deemed necessary by
'the authorities'.

So the story on the street goes, another prominent netter was arrested
just recently by the same friendly folks who shut down Jolnet not long
ago. Like jolnet, netsys went down abruptly, with *everything*
confiscated, including a box of old busted up circuit boards in the
basement which hadn't been looked at in years. Now comes news that
attcdc, formerly known as killer went off line in a hurry.....

When 'the authorities' come a-calling, with warrant in hand, and their
credentials in order, they start looking for Mother's source code; 3b2
stuff and the like, and they keep looking until they find it.

You say they won't come knocking at your door?  You say you'll take it
all off line and store it on a reel of tape stashed in the back of the
bottom drawer of an old file cabinet somewhere?  They *will* find it.
And when they find it, your choices will be:

     1) You stole this from AT&T. You are a cracker. You'll go to jail.

     2) If you didn't steal it from AT&T, then someone gave it to you.
        Tell us who.... if you won't tell us, then go back to choice 1.

        If you will snitch, and tell us who gave you this code, then
        the Court will be lenient and show mercy upon you -- but we 
        won't put that in writing of course! :)

Faced with these two options, of course everyone selects choice 2. And
with the new information gleaned from the visit, another site is
scheduled for downtime.

Consider Rich Andrews of Jolnet: Our deep-throat says Rich was first
confronted in the 911 software caper, then the feds found other
goodies.  Could it be the feds started squeezing in a private place
and Rich started singing the tune they wanted to hear? Do crackers
stick together when times get tough or do they turn on each other?

You just never know about these things. Some people have been saying
the only safe thing to do at this point is 'rm illegal.software'; go
wash their hands and be done with it, but far be it from me to suggest
such a thing.  That could be construed as an obstruction of justice in
what appears now to be an on-going investigation in our net community
of people whose systems are dirty....

Jolnet ===> netsys ===> attcdc (killer) ===>  your 3b2 site name here.


Patrick Townson