Vulgar words in Underground (Page 1)
This book at a glance
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~ ~ ~ Sentence 324 ~ ~ ~
The idea for using these Oilz extracts came while researching Chapter 1, which reveals the tale of the WANK worm crisis in NASA.
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Next to the RTM worm, WANK is the most famous worm in the history of computer networks.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 327 ~ ~ ~
With WANK, life imitated art, since the term computer 'worm' came from John Brunner's sci-fi novel, The Shockwave Rider, about a politically motivated worm.
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The WANK worm is also believed to be the first worm written by an Australian, or Australians.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 437 ~ ~ ~
Your System Has Been Officically Wanked.
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~ ~ ~ Sentence 440 ~ ~ ~
Most of the American computer system managers reading this new banner had never heard the word wank.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 455 ~ ~ ~
And that word, 'WANKED'.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 457 ~ ~ ~
What did it mean when a system was 'wanked'?
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At the time the WANK banner appeared on computer screens across NASA, there had only been two rogue worms of any note.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 558 ~ ~ ~
By contrast, the SPAN project office didn't know what the WANK invader was capable of doing.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 566 ~ ~ ~
In this case, the WANK worm only attacked VMS computer systems.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 616 ~ ~ ~
NASA was working in an information void when it came to WANK.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 700 ~ ~ ~
Even as the WANK worm coursed through NASA, it was launching an aggressive attack on DOE's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, near Chicago.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 703 ~ ~ ~
They wanted him to analyse the WANK worm.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 741 ~ ~ ~
It was easy to get lost in the bureaucracy of DEC, which employed more than 125000 people, posted a billion-dollar profit and declared revenues in excess of $12 billion in 1989.10 Such an enormous and prestigious company would not want to face a crisis such as the WANK worm, particularly in such a publicly visible organisation like NASA.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 751 ~ ~ ~
John McMahon's analysis suggested there were three versions of the WANK worm.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 767 ~ ~ ~
The WANK worm had invaded the corporation's own network.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 769 ~ ~ ~
DEC was circumspect about discussing the matter publicly, but the Easynet version of the WANK worm was definitely distinct.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 805 ~ ~ ~
When the WANK worm invaded a computer system, it had instructions to copy itself and send that copy out to other machines.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 835 ~ ~ ~
Part of the worm, a subroutine, was named 'find fucked'.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 890 ~ ~ ~
'Your system has officially been WANKED.'
~ ~ ~ Sentence 905 ~ ~ ~
If its creator had wanted to, he could have programmed the WANK worm to obliterate NASA's files.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 908 ~ ~ ~
The WANK worm had been instructed to perform several tasks which it didn't execute.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 913 ~ ~ ~
Nonetheless, the fragmented and partly dysfunctional WANK worm was causing a major crisis inside several US government agencies.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 916 ~ ~ ~
And what if the WANK worm was just a dry run for something more serious down the track?
~ ~ ~ Sentence 918 ~ ~ ~
Even though the WANK worm did not seem to be intentionally evil, the SPAN team faced some tough times.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 938 ~ ~ ~
The message had to be circumspect since no-one knew if the creator of the WANK worm was in fact on the network, watching, waiting.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 944 ~ ~ ~
McMahon recalled that, some time before the WANK worm attack, a manager had tried to map the system.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 979 ~ ~ ~
After the worm incident, various computer security experts would hypothesise that the WANK worm had in fact been written by more than one person.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,004 ~ ~ ~
The first anti-WANK program did just that.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,005 ~ ~ ~
It quietly sat on the SPAN computers all day long, posing as a NETW_ process, faking out any real version of the WANK worm which should come along.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,006 ~ ~ ~
Oberman completed an anti-WANK program first and ran it by McMahon.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,012 ~ ~ ~
McMahon worked up his own version of an anti-WANK program, based on Oberman's program, in preparation for releasing it to NASA.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,013 ~ ~ ~
At the same time, Oberman revised his anti-WANK program for DOE.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,056 ~ ~ ~
Your System Has Been Officically Wanked.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,089 ~ ~ ~
Mutated worms will require modification of this code; however, this program should prevent the worm from running long enough to secure your system from the worms attacks.13 --- McMahon's version of an anti-WANK program was also ready to go by late Monday, but he would face delays getting it out to NASA.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,091 ~ ~ ~
It was several days before NASA's anti-WANK program was officially released.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,092 ~ ~ ~
DOE was not without its share of problems in launching the anti-WANK program and advisory across HEPNET.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,101 ~ ~ ~
He pressed the key, sent out his final anti-WANK report and fled the building.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,104 ~ ~ ~
Official estimates on the scope of the WANK worm attack were vague, but trade journals such as Network World and Computerworld quoted the space agency as suffering only a small number of successful worm invasions, perhaps 60 VMS-based computers.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,107 ~ ~ ~
Figures were sketchy, but virtually everyone on the network--all 270000 computer accounts--had been affected by the worm, either because their part of the network had been pulled off-line or because their machines had been harassed by the WANK worm as it tried again and again to login from an infected machine.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,110 ~ ~ ~
Also by the end of the crisis, NASA and DOE computer network managers had their choice of vaccines, antidotes and blood tests for the WANK worm.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,126 ~ ~ ~
Regardless of the technical problems, the court challenges and the protesters, the whimsical weather, the natural disasters, and the WANK worm, NASA was still in control of the situation.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,145 ~ ~ ~
Still, they managed to get copies of anti-WANK out, despite the limitations of the dated SPAN records and the paucity of good logs allowing them to retrace the worm's path.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,152 ~ ~ ~
He doubted that someone who had gone to all that trouble of creating the WANK worm would let his baby be exterminated so quickly.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,162 ~ ~ ~
Ron Tencati and Todd Butler had a copy of the new WANK worm ready for McMahon.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,165 ~ ~ ~
The revised worm's penetration rate was much higher--more than four times greater than the version of WANK released in the first attack.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,168 ~ ~ ~
'I ran your anti-WANK program, followed your instructions to the letter, and look what happened!'
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,172 ~ ~ ~
This worm didn't just kill the decoy, it also killed any other copy of the WANK worm.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,174 ~ ~ ~
There were other disturbing improvements to the new version of the WANK worm.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,214 ~ ~ ~
Finally, almost two weeks after the second onslaught, the WANK worm had been eradicated from SPAN.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,215 ~ ~ ~
By McMahon's estimate, the WANK worm had incurred up to half a million dollars in costs.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,232 ~ ~ ~
McMahon never found out who created the WANK worm.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,235 ~ ~ ~
The WANK worm left a number of unanswered questions in its wake, a number of loose ends which still puzzle John McMahon.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,237 ~ ~ ~
Did the use of the word 'WANK'--a most un-American word--mean the hacker wasn't American?
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,239 ~ ~ ~
Why had no-one, no political or other group, claimed responsibility for the WANK worm?
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,241 ~ ~ ~
The worm's creator had replaced the original process name, NETW_, with a new one, presumably to thwart the anti-WANK program.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,247 ~ ~ ~
It was a complete mystery why the creator of the WANK worm, the hacker who launched an invasion into hundreds of NASA and DOE computers, should choose this weird word.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,253 ~ ~ ~
It is not surprising, for example, that these officials should to this day be pronouncing the 'Oilz' version of the WANK worm as 'oil zee'.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,258 ~ ~ ~
Yet, NASA and the US Department of Energy were half a world away from finding the creator of the WANK worm.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,282 ~ ~ ~
The DST wanted to make it clear that the infamous WANK worm attack on the world's most prestigious space agency did not originate in France.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,319 ~ ~ ~
Tencati was sure he could show the WANK worm attack on NASA originated in France.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,321 ~ ~ ~
When he developed a timeline of attacks, he found that the GEMPAK machine showed X.25 network connection, via another system, from a French computer around the same time as the WANK worm attack.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,331 ~ ~ ~
But these remnants of the WANK worm were not dated 16 October or any time immediately around then.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,339 ~ ~ ~
Yes they told him, you might be able to point to a French system as ground zero for the attack, but our investigations reveal incoming X.25 connections from elsewhere which coincided with the timing of the development of the WANK worm.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,341 ~ ~ ~
The French had satisfied themselves that it wasn't a French hacker who had created the WANK worm.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,345 ~ ~ ~
Law enforcement and computer security people in the US and Australia had ideas about just who had created the WANK worm.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,348 ~ ~ ~
Like many Australian hackers, the creator of the WANK worm had emerged from the shadows of the computer underground, stood momentarily in hazy silhouette, and then disappeared again.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,349 ~ ~ ~
The Australian computer underground in the late 1980s was an environment which spawned and shaped the author of the WANK worm.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,352 ~ ~ ~
In 1988, the year before the WANK worm attack on NASA, Australia was on an upswing.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,405 ~ ~ ~
It was a place in which the creator of the WANK worm could sculpt and hone his creative computer skills.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,732 ~ ~ ~
Damn.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,889 ~ ~ ~
Damn Telescum!
~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,375 ~ ~ ~
All he could think was, Shit!
~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,629 ~ ~ ~
Par really liked Tammi, but he couldn't get the ugly phrase 'white trash' out of his thoughts.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,881 ~ ~ ~
Par sat in the seat next to Chris, quietly freaking out.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,108 ~ ~ ~
'Cause, I mean, you're so fucking stupid, it's not even funny.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,109 ~ ~ ~
I mean, if you had to send my shit to Apple Computers [for analysis], you must be so stupid, it's pitiful.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,402 ~ ~ ~
Subject: DAMN !!!
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,403 ~ ~ ~
From: The Parmaster Date: Sat Jan 13 08:40:17 1990 Shit, i got drunk last night and went onto that Philippine system... Stupid Admin comes on and asks who i am ... Next thing i know, i'm booted off and both accounts on the system are gone.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,404 ~ ~ ~
Not only this .. but the whole fucking Philippine Net isn't accepting collect calls anymore.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,408 ~ ~ ~
- Par Subject: gawd From: The Parmaster Date: Sat Jan 13 09:07:06 1990 Those SS boys and NSA boys think i'm a COMRADE .. hehehe i'm just glad i'm still fucking free.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,416 ~ ~ ~
And that's BAD fucking news for us.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,426 ~ ~ ~
THE ONLY CONNECTION IS DISCONNECTION ... Oh well, maybe i'll take a few of the buggers with me when they come for me.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,432 ~ ~ ~
He was a fat shit before he died anyway.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,433 ~ ~ ~
To everyone who's been a good friend of mine and help me cover up the fact that i don't know a fucking thing--i thank u.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,436 ~ ~ ~
- Par Subject: Par From: Erik Bloodaxe Date: Tue Jan 23 23:21:39 1990 Shit man, don't drink and think about things like that.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,443 ~ ~ ~
Dead people can't get laid, but people in federal prisons DO get conjugal visits!!!
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,446 ~ ~ ~
I can see you are really getting worried, so just fucking call ... - Erik Subject: Hah From: The Parmaster Date: Thu Jan 25 18:58:00 1990 Just keep in mind they see everything you do.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,449 ~ ~ ~
- Par Subject: Well shit.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,461 ~ ~ ~
Eddie was a good friend, smartest damn UNIX box around ... And he called today to tell me goodbye.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,462 ~ ~ ~
Now i know i'm fucked.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,582 ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,593 ~ ~ ~
Corrupt, the toughest, baddest guy in MOD, the black kid from the roughest part of New York, the hacker who gave shit to everyone because he could, apologised to Par.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,741 ~ ~ ~
Told him none too nicely that he wanted to 'get the fuck outta here'.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,893 ~ ~ ~
He had been on the run for more than two years from the frigging Secret Service, for Christ's sake.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,263 ~ ~ ~
'Piece of shit machine.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,264 ~ ~ ~
I did all this editing and the damn thing didn't save the changes,' Electron growled at the Commodore Amiga, with its 512 k of memory, sitting on the desk in his bedroom.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,268 ~ ~ ~
Fucking hell.