The Brand New Coder's Scene Magazine! Issue #1 (Pilot) Aug 1990 Hello, and welcome to this, the only disk magazine dedicated to Amiga 68000 Coders. Well, click the Mouse over page one, and read on for more details. Main - Menu. å------------------------°å------------------------°å------------------------° | About The Magazine || Interesting Tel Nos.. || U.S.A Blue Boxes 1 | | Christmas Virus 1 || Random Numbers 1 || ~ ~ Boxes 2 | | ~ ~ Virus 2 || ~ ~ Numbers 2 || ~ ~ Boxes 3 | | ~ ~ Virus 3 || How To Make L.S.D! || ~ ~ Boxes 4 | | Neccesity Deviance 1 || N.A.S.A. SpaceLink 1 || U.S.A More Boxes.. 1 | | ~ ~ 2 || ~ ~ 2 || ~ ~ ~ 2 | | ~ ~ 3 || ~ ~ 3 || | | ~ ~ 4 || ~ ~ 4 || | | ~ ~ 5 || Classified Adverts.. || | | Ten Things..... 1 || || | | ~ ~ 2 || || | | Sprite Tips.... || || ** EXIT MAGAZINE ** | æ------------------------ßæ------------------------ßæ------------------------ß To contribute, write to the addresses shown in the pages above. Instructions: Select Desired Item Using Mouse to Highlight Bar, Then Click LEFT Mouse To Read Page, and Press RIGHT Mouse To Progress A Page. Press LEFT mouse Button to return to Main-Menu. Eg: To Read The N.A.S.A Article, Click on it's 1st Page, then read each page by pressing RIGHT mouse, then Press LEFT mouse to return to the Main-Menu. Joystick=Colour Change: Up=Blue+, Left=Green+, Right=Red+, Fire=Default. Coded By/Editor: THE SNOWMAN. Co-Editor: COUNT ZERO. Material: VARIOUS. About The Coder's Scene Magazine. Hello & Welcome. This is a pilot for the ~real thing~ magazine, when I get things off the ground. This magazine will take a standard format (much like this pilot........), and will be one executable file that can be put on compacts etc.. Issues will be put out every time I have enough material to put one together and will cater really for Coders on the Amiga (but will also contain much, other interesting material, such as all the ~hacking~ info in this pilot issue). This issue has over 60k of text alone, the next will have a little more. Well, this is the best part, if you want to offer any advice, or contribute in any way (ie. writing things in ASCII format 80 columns wide...), then you should do so soon, and send it to The Editor/Co-Editor: The Snowman, Magazine Stuff, 18 Palm Grove, Whitby, Ellesmere Port, L66 2PU. Count Zero, Magazine Stuff, 40 Vine Road, Backford Cross, S.Wirral, L66 2XX. The kind of stuff I'm looking for are the following: A> Articles about something interesting... B> Letters (Got Coding Problems?) C> Coding Articles... D> Circuit Diagrams? E> Hacking Information... F> Anything.... G> Classified Ads (Contacts Etc..) H> Anything.... ( All Disks Returned With The Latest Issue On Them If Postage Is Included....) NOTE: All information in this mag CANNOT be verified, and all hacking info is for Informational/Interest purposes ONLY (as is ALL the text in the mag....) laws CAN be broken if various instructions in texts were carried out, and I can accept NO responsability for ANY STUPID actions taken ! Some Interesting Phone Numbers....... Falkland Is. Governors Office : 010 500 2202 Falkland Is. Secretarys Office : 010 500 2201 Cable and Wireless Port Stanley : 010 500 2405 Le Figaro, Paris : 0800 898058 Access Credit Card Validation : 0702 352222 Checkpoint Cheque Validation Scheme: 0800 424949 Barclaycard Validation : 0345 555555 KGB : 010 7 095 222 70762 NSA : 0101 381 688 6311 DTI Space SVCS : 01 215 2138 DTI Cordless Telephones : 01 215 2208 Scramble Facts : 0101 712 343 0130 New Dialtones : 061 246 8011/0203 8011 System X Demo : 061 246 8011 Downing Street : 01 270 3000 Buck. House : 01 930 4832 Space Shuttle Comm. : 0101 900 410 6272 Watergate : 0101 202 965 2900 Pentagon : 0101 202 545 6706 The Presidents Office : 0101 202 456 2858 Vice Presidents Office : 0101 202 456 7123 Prestel Operational Computer Centre: 01 248 0480 (SOME NUMBERS MAY HAVE CHANGED!) HACKING PAGES #1 *BLUE BOX* THE ~BLUE BOX~ WAS SO NAMED BECAUSE OF THE COLOR OF THE FIRST ONE FOUND. THE DESIGN AND HARDWARE USED IN THE BLUE BOX IS FAIRLY SOPHISTICATED, AND ITS SIZE VARIES FROM A LARGE PIECE OF APPARATUS TO A MINIATURIZED UNIT THAT IS APPROXIMATELY THE SIZE OF A ~KING SIZE~ PACKAGE OF CIGARETTES. THE BLUE BOX CONTAINS 12 OR 13 BUTTONS OR SWITCHES THAT EMIT MULTI- FREQUENCY TONES CHARACTERISTIC OF THE TONES USED IN THE NORMAL OPERATION OF THE TELEPHONE TOLL (LONG DISTANCE) SWITCHING NETWORK. THE BLUE BOX ENABLES ITS USER TO ORIGINATE FRAUDULENT (~FREE~) TOLL CALLS BY CIRCUMVENTING TOLL BILLING EQUIPMENT. THE BLUE BOX MAY BE DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO A PHONE LINE, OR IT MAY BE ACOUSTICALLY COUPLED TO A TELEPHONE HANDSET BY PLACING THE BLUE BOX'S SPEAKER NEXT TO THE TRANS MITTER OR THE TELEPHONE HANDSET. THE OPERATION OF A BLUE BOX WILL BE DISCUSSED IN MORE DETAIL BELOW. TO UNDERSTAND THE NATURE OF A FRAUDULENT BLUE BOX CALL, IT IS NECESSARY TO UNDERSTAND THE BASIC OPERATION OF THE DIRECT DISTANCE DIALING (DDD) TELEPHONE NETWORK. WHEN A DDD CALL IS PROPERLY ORIGINATED, THE CALLING NUMBER IS IDENTIFIED AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF ESTABLISHING THE CONNECTION. THIS MAY BE DONE EITHER AUTOMATICALLY OR, IN SOME CASES, BY AN OPERATOR ASKING THE CALLING PARTY FOR HIS TELEPHONE NUMBER. THIS INFORMATION IS ENTERED ON A TAPE IN THE AUTOMATIC MESSAGE ACCOUNTING (AMA) OFFICE. THIS TAPE ALSO CONTAINS THE NUMBER ASSIGNED TO THE TRUNK LINE OVER WHICH THE CALL IS TO BE SENT. THE INFORMATION RELATING TO THE CALL CONTAINED ON THE TAPE INCLUDES: CALLED NUMBER INDENTIFICATION, TIME OF ORIGINATION OF CALL, AND INFO THAT THE CALLED NUMBER ANSWERED THE CALL. THE TIME OF DISCONNECT AT THE END OF THE CALL IS ALSO REFORDED. (CONT'D) HISTORY OF THE CHRISTMAS VIRUS It all began as a joke for Christmas. A student in West Germany wrote a little program called ~Christma~ and sent it to all his friends on the network of Claustahal Technical University, south of Hanover. Sending it through the network was simple: the program handled that by reading a couple of files containing lists of all regular corres- pondents and all recently sent and received mail: Names and Netlog. When the program was run the recipients saw a festive Christmas tree appear on their screens. Very nice too. However Christma also secretly read the recipients Names and Netlog files, moved forward on its merry way and, rather ungratefully, then deleted itself from the host. The next, rather larger, batch of recipients (who were of course all used to unknown programs appearing through the network) ran Christma as well and saw the pretty graphics come and go. Of course they all had Names and Netlog files too... That was December 9th 1987. No Hard discs scrambled, no system lockups, no discs infected with AIDS... no harm done surely? Just a seasonal greeting transmitted by good ol' Info Tech. Well that's what the writer of Christma thought too and he was very mistaken. The problem lay in the speed of communication and the increased linking of computer networks in many fields. And continents. The virus program spread with accelerating speed throughout Europe via its link into EARN: the European Academic Research Network. EARN is also linked to universities in the US via Bitnet...hundreds of automatic mailers busily consulted Netlogs and the volume of traffic grew exponentially. (CONT'D) TAKING THE ~RANDOM~ OUT OF RANDOM PAGE 1 One of the most notable factors in so-called tables of computerized ~random~ numbers is that there are two basic ways of creating them. The first method is to create a table that will provide what can statistically be said to be a random list - that is no number or letter would theoretically occur more frequently than any other number or letter. Most systems, however, simply rely on an electronic component that creates alledgedly ~random~ numbers. These hardware random number generators are usually biased in their number selections. One simple test of a random number generator is called the ~coin toss test.~ A program is written to simulate the results of a thousand or so coin tosses. Were the random number generator truly random, heads would appear about as frequently as tails. In an actual test, however, heads appeared 421 times, and tails appeared 579 times - a significant bias. A test such as this could be performed over the entire alphanumeric character list and the component's bias chartered. Once this information was known, the cracking computer could be programmed to insert this selection bias into it's own attempts to generate passwords. This is yet another step that evens the odds between the hacker and the so-called ~uncrackable~ password. This testing scheme, requiring either a component or a computer like the target computer, would be a lengthy process, but some people might regard the product as worth the time involved in preparing such an analysis. (Cont'd) HACKING PAGES #2 *BLUE BOX CONTD* ALTHOUGH THE TAPE CONTAINS INFO WITH RESPECT TO MANY DIFFERENT CALLS, THE VARIOUS DATA ENTRIES WITH RESPECT TO A SINGLE CALL ARE EVENTUALLY CORRELATED TO PROVIDE BILLING INFO FOR USE BY YOUR BELL'S ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT. THE TYPICAL BLUE BOX USER USUALLY DIALS A NUMBER THAT WILL ROUTE THE CALL INTO THE TELEPHONE NETWORK WITHOUT CHARGE. FOR EXAMPLE, THE USER WILL VERY OFTEN CALL A WELL-KNOWN INWATS (TOLL-FREE) CUSTOMER'S NUMBER. THE BLUE BOX USER, AFTER GAINING THIS ACCESS TO THE NETWORK AND, IN EFFECT, ~SEIZING~ CONTROL AND COMPLETE DOMINION OVER THE LINE, OPERATES A KEY ON THE BLUE BOX WHICH EMITS A 2600 HERTZ (CYCLES PER SECOND) TONE. THIS TONE CAUSES THE SWITCHING EQUIPMENT TO RELEASE THE CONNECTION TO THE INWATS CUSTOMER'S LINE. THE 2600HZ TONE IS A SIGNAL THAT THE CALLING PARTY HAS HUNG UP. THE BLUE BOX SIMULATES THIS CONDITION. HOWEVER, IN FACT THE LOCAL TRUNK ON THE CALLING PARTY'S END IS STILL CONNECTED TO THE TOLL NETWORK. THE BLUE BOX USER NOW OPERATES THE ~KP~ (KEY PULSE) KEY ON THE BLUE BOX TO NOTIFY THE TOLL SWITCH- ING EQUIPMENT THAT SWITCHING SIGNALS ARE ABOUT TO BE EMITTED. THE USER THEN PUSHES THE ~NUMBER~ BUTTONS ON THE BLUE BOX CORRESPONDING TO THE TELEPHONE # BEING CALLED. AFTER DOING SO HE/SHE OPERATES THE ~ST~ (START) KEY TO INDICATE TO THE SWITCHING EQUIPMENT THAT SIGNALLING IS COMPLETE. IF THE CALL IS COMPLETED, ONLY THE PORTION OF THE ORIGINAL CALL PRIOR TO THE EMISSION OF 2600HZ TONE IS RECORDED ON THE AMA TAPE. THE TONES EMITTED BY THE BLUE BOX ARE NOT RECORDED ON THE AMA TAPE. THEREFOREF, BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL CALL TO THE INWATS # IS TOLL-FREE, NO BILLING IS RENDERED IN CONNECTION WITH THE CALL. ALTHOUGH THE ABOVE IS A DESCRIPTION OF A TYPICAL BLUE BOX OPERATION USING A COMMON METHOD OF ENTRY INTO THE NETWORK,THE OPERATION OF A BLUE BOX (CONTD) HISTORY OF THE CHRISTMAS VIRUS Page2 Within TWO DAYS networks were seriously overloaded on both continents. By the 11th December the jamming was so serious that system programmers from EARN and Bitnet came together to try to track and kill Christma. For the first time in the history of Virus hunting a Seeker program was developed (by Eric Thomas of the Ecole Centrale de Paris) which traced the flow of Christma by reading Netlog files, chasing and then erasing it. Meanwhile systems on which Christma had appeared were taken off the network while discs were checked. By the 14th December the academic networks were free. But Christma was not yet dead, although the author probably wished that he was. IBM has a private network VNET, which is linked to Bitnet...VNET corporate users tend to hold very large Names files. The entire IBM corporate E-mail system was closed down for 72 hours until the infection was eradicated! :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Horrifying or amusing, depending on your point of view, Christma really happened and very recently. The implications for users and manufacturers are profound. We have all heard of Trojan files on Bulletin Boards, the Amiga Virus and others not so widely publicised. Hardware designers and manufacturers have viewed the issues as unimportant to their business. In other words it's the users problem. IBM for one may well be rethinking this strategy! Technically, it has been possible for many years to design safer systems. A program should not be able to run in a system that is (CONT'D) TAKING THE ~RANDOM~ OUT OF RANDOM... PAGE 2 A strategy of cracking Dow Jones system, given the rules listed above, would be to create a program with an algorithm that provided combinations of passwords meeting the criteria above. As each creation was tested, a pattern might be found in the successful creations that would make the algorithm even more selective. One would expect, for example, that simular to the MILNET and ARPANET passwords, certain confusing characters would be eliminated from passwords. The number, ~0~ is often eliminated, for example, because it is easily confused with the letter ~O~. Taken From A BBS Hacking Section. HACKING PAGES #3 *BLUE BOX CONTD* MAY VARY IN ANY ONE OR ALL OF THE FOLLOWING RESPECTS: (A) THE BLUE BOX MAY INCLUDE A ROTARY DIAL TO APPLY THE 2600HZ TONE AND THE SWITCHING SIGNALS. THIS TYPE OF BLUE BOX IS CALLED A ~DIAL PULSER~ OR ~ROTARY SF~ BLUE BOX. (B) ENTRANCE INTO THE DDD TOLL NETWORK MAY BE EFFECTED BY A PRETEXT CALL TO ANY OTHER TOLL-FREE # SUCH AS UNIVERSAL DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE (555-1212) OR ANY # IN THE INWATS NETWORK, EITHER INTER-STATE OR INTRA- STATE, WORKING OR NON-WORKING. (C) ENTRANCE INTO THE DDD TOLL NETWORK MAY ALSO BE IN THE FORM OF ~SHORT HAUL~ CALLING. A ~SHORT HAUL~ CALL IS A CALL TO ANY # WHICH WILL RESULT IN A LESSER AMOUNT OF TOLL CHARGES THAN THE CHARGES FOR THE CALL TO BE COMPLETED BY THE BLUE BOX. FOR EXAMPLE, A CALL TO BIRMINGHAM FROM ATLANTA MAY COST $.80 FOR THE FIRST 3 MINUTES WHILE A CALL FROM ATLANTA TO LOS ANGELES IS $1.85 FOR 3 MINUTES. THUS, A SHORT HAUL, 3-MINUTE CALL TO BIRMINGHAM FROM ATLANTA, SWITCHED BY USE OF A BLUE BOX TO LOS ANGELES, WOULD RESULT IN A NET FRAUD OF $1.05 FOR A 3 MINUTE CALL. (D) A BLUE BOX MAY BE WIRED INTO THE TELEPHONE LINE OR ACOUSTICALLY COUPLED BY PLACING THE SPEAKER OF THE BLUE BOX NEAR THE TRANSMITTER OF THE PHONE HANDSET. THE BLUE BOX MAY EVEN BE BUILT INSIDE A REGULAR TOUCH-TONE PHONE, USING THE PHONE'S PUSHBUTTONS FOR THE BLUE BOX'S SIGNALLING TONES. (E) A MAGNETIC TAPE RECORDING MAY BE USED TO RECORD THE BLUE BOX TONES REPRESENTATIVE OF SPECIFIC PHONE #'S. SUCH A TAPE RECORDING COULD BE USED IN LIEU OF A BLUE BOX TO FRAUDULENTLY PLACE CALLS TO THE PHONE #'S RECORDED ON THE MAGNETIC TAPE. (CONT'D) HISTORY OF THE CHRISTMAS VIRUS Page3 completely unprotected. It should operate in isolation until tested and known. There should be no way that a program can read files without the users knowledge and express permission. Equally, users should be more careful about running programs on systems which are vital to us. Easier said than done. At present it seems there are no simple solutions except never to down load... Sid Hancock How To Make ~L.S.D~ By Anon. Note: The following was posted to me by an unknown person, and I do not in any way condone LSD or any type of drugs, and recommend that you don't attempt to make any ~L.S.D~. How to make LSD : by Dr. D-Code & The Pimp brought to CAL by CC. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Grind up 150 grams of baby Hawaiian wood rose seeds 2. In 130cc of petroleum ether, soak seeds for 2 days 3. Filter solution thru a tight screen 4. Throw away liquid and allow the seed mush to dry 5. For 2 days allow the mush to soak in 110cc of wood alcohol 6. Filter the solution again saving the liquid and labelling it #1 7. Re-soak the mush in 110cc of wood alcohol for 2 days 8. Filter and throw away the mush 9. Add the liquid from the second soak to the solution labeled #1 10. Pour the liquid into a cookie tray and let it evaporate 11. When the liquid has evaporated, a yellow gum remains 12. Scrape the yellow stuff into capsules. Order the seeds from a wholesaler >only