From: CSBVAX::MRGATE!@KL.SRI.Com,@RELAY.CS.NET:WEIRAUCH%iravcl@GERMANY.CSNET@SMTP 29-AUG-1987 01:32 To: EVERHART Subj: RE: *** Important message *** (The answer - resent) Received: from RELAY.CS.NET by KL.SRI.COM with TCP; Fri 28 Aug 87 20:39:05-PDT Received: from relay2.cs.net by RELAY.CS.NET id aa22667; 28 Aug 87 23:43 EDT Received: from germany by csnet-relay.csnet id ab05605; 28 Aug 87 23:33 EDT Received: from iravcl by iraul1.germany.csnet id aa20175; 29 Aug 87 3:49 MET Date: Sat, 29 Aug 87 01:01 MET From: "Stefan Weirauch, IRA, Uni Karlsruhe" To: info-vax%kl.sri.com%germany.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET, security%red.rutgers.edu%germany.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET Subject: RE: *** Important message *** (The answer - resent) X-VMS-To: IN%"info-vax@kl.sri.com",IN%"security@red.rutgers.edu",WEIRAUCH About two weeks ago I already sent the following message to the Info-Vax- and Secutiy-List. Due to unknown reasons, it was not distributed (at least, did not find the way back to our site). Well, now, with an undesired delay, here are my... [Start of original message] ....Remarks on the messages from Roy Omond (31-Jul) and Michael Bednarek (4-Aug), both sent to Info-Vax and forwarded to Security. Just back from my summer holidays I have to notice some very strange statements in connection with my name. Roy Omond wrote: > Now something I'm a bit unsure about whether I should publicise : > He better should have given it more thought... > Two persons with known connections with the Chaos Computer Club in Hamburg > who I know have distributed the patches mentioned above (and in my opinion > are to be considered along with the lowest dregs of society) I will name ======================= This is, in fact, a primitve insult, based on nothing but speculations. > here : > > Claus Traenkner (at our own outstation of the EMBL in Hamburg) > and Stefan Weirauch (at the Univ. of Karlsruhe) > > in the hope that someone somewhere will a) be saved some hassle from them > and b) might perform physical violence on them. ========================= Well, just an instigation to perform violance. To build an opinion about this way of writing a public message is left to the reader. However, as System/Security Manager I know very well those problems with hackers (see below). In case of detecting such a penetrator, I grab him and take further steps personally. At my site no personal mail relative to those topics in Roy Omonds message reached me. May be, that is not astonishing in the light of a message, which is based on some vague informations. Michael Bednarek wrote: > I knew I had seen this name before, and (using rn) the command ?weirauch?ra > showed article <8707221338.AA29452@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> which is a patch > to PHONE. The date was 21-Jul-1987. > > In the light of Roy's experience you might want to examine the nature of that > patch. Well, this comment fully deserves my agreement, because you will see, how well written the Phone Patch is (of course, I mean the second, bugfixed version). But, does it make sense, to examine software, distributed over the net, only if there is someone, railing at the creator ? I think, you allways should very carefully examing such software, performing modifications of the operating system. If your are not able to do this, for example, because you have no micro-fiches, it is reasonable to wait for such modifications from DEC. I did not add such a hint to my PHONEPAT - description, because I suppose, we all think that way. As I mentioned in my PHONEPAT message, there are many clever student users at our site, detecting bugs or undocumented features in VMS. I spend a lot of time in preventing them from successfully attacking the system. To do this efficiently I made my thoughts about the things a hacker might perform. Thus, I learned much, and hacked patches to parts of the system as a problem of system security (again affecting my nerves and time) are old for me; if they are new to you, dont accuse those people, making their experiences with these aspects of security, but learn from them and be thankful ! Stefan Weirauch CSNET: WEIRAUCH%iravcl@germany.csnet Informatik-Rechner-Abteilung UUCP: WEIRAUCH%iravcl%uka.uucp@unido.uucp Universitaet Karlsruhe PSI: PSI%026245721042100::WEIRAUCH D-7500 Karlsruhe 1 West Germany