IN TIlE UNITED STAlES DISTRICT counT Fon HIE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

SOUTHERN DIVISION
MOL
IN ne LONG OISTANeE
TELECOMMUNICATIONS

LI TIGATION

Docket No. 598

All CAses
Han. AnnA Diggs TAylor

NOTICE OF CLASS ACTION ANO PROPOSEO SETTLEMENT TO CERTAIN CURRENT ANO

FORMER CUSTOMERS OF ALLNET COMMUNICATION SERVICES, INC.

Order 01 the United Statp.s District Court for Ihe Eastern District of Michigan, PLEASE TAKE NOTICE THAT:
A ClASS acllon lawsul' has been fUad on bah,,11 d. corlsln 'ormer find current customers aORlnst Allnet Communlcallon
Services, Inc., formerly known as Combined Network, Inc. The Court hAl preUmlna,lly approved. leltlement of this 'awsult.
YOU ARE URGED TO READ THIS NOTICE CAREFULLY BECAUSE
IT AFFEC T S YOUR RIGHTS AND Will BE BINDING
.
ON YOU IN THE FUTURE.
Ry

L NOTICE OF A PENOING CLASS ACTION

A. DNertp"_"" L un
IUed

Plalnllffs have
Annet. alleging that Allnet charged cuslomeJS lor cer'aln unanswered letephana caU., holding
lime, busy signets. and Cfmtrllr oftlc8 recordings (collecltvftly "unanswered calls". without adequately dlsdoslng eueh charon
to lhelr customers the pubHc. Plalnt"'!!f'ek to pre5ent their
clafms for charges fOf' unanswered caAs, wei
a! t
II::::r::t,: .z:I:yA:'';lf:=:":,r,c:tr;r AHnet has charged Its eubscrlbers f.lrly
and properry and has dlsclo tun)' and '."'y he basis for Its tong distance charges. AHnftt has agreed 10 seltle PI.'ntlff, suR
sole'y to avotd the expen'J8, Inconvenlonce andI dlsrupUon of further litigation.
This Nollce Is nol an expression 01 any opinion by 'hit Courl or thf'J merits of this 11II 811on or or the Settlement A reemeni.
,
t
rn
a rr s
' S
hour!': hn:,:::, 6''::B:,,::n:a:' g. tc=':":'::':'t ':tr,,=-=!,. /1 ;:. tm: Boutevard.
Detroit. Michigan 48226.
. The S.ttlement CI....
Plalntlfts and Alinel have entered Into a Sttlement Agreement. which has been pre1lmlnarlly approved by the Court.
Under the Utfms 01 the Settlement Agreement, the parUes have agreed, lor purposes of settlement onty. I"a' Ihls autt h been
brought
behalf of the toftowlng cla, 01 persons slmltarly situated to Plalntl"' t the "Class"):
All persons and entities that SUMcribed to end utilited the long distance tetephone MrVk:e of AHnet or Its predecesSOf.
Combined Networ1t, Inc. (referred to coHectivety "Annet'). at any tkne durlnQ the period March 2. 1981 through
December 31. 1985.
C. How 10 Rem.ln C .... M.m......
t
t
w
e
198 ft :::'tt :;,":!=::, t::;;:. :::a :!rn ":ec!.t! a:8y
parUclpate In this ttettlement and you wm be bound by the resulls ot the settlement and/or the laWllUlt.
D. How to EKCIuda Yoar.... From 1M Cl
You Are not required to be member 01 the Clllss. Should you decide that you do nol want to be. mf'mber of the Class,
you must send an exclusl('ln notice that statfts your name. current address. And your desire to be excludl8d 'rom the Cla!'lsio Ihe
Clerk of the United States Dtstrlct Court for the Eastern Dls'rlct of Michigan at the address given at the and 0' this Notice.
postmarked no laler than June lB. 198ft " you choose to be excluded 'rom the Class, you may not participate In the settlement.
You will no1. howtMfr, be bound by any Judgment dlsmlsslng this action and you wilt rematn I,.. to pur_ your own behaH
any Mga' rights you may h.....
or

own

on

on

n. TERMS OF THE SETTLEMENT

lm m
c s
t
of 12II::-Yt';=':::'i : n p :: : = ':."'7{:t!:R::'i. ,:=)( U
benefits are available to Class members who propMly complete and m. a Proof 01 Claim In the manner described In Section
III be4ow. Class members may choose one benef it from the following options:
A. A slandardlzed credit toward Allnel long dlslanc.telephone service 0' 90 cftnl, lor each year 'rom 1981 through
1985 In which the Ctass memb9r (Il was an Annet cuslomer; and (II) claims that ahe/he w.. charged by
Allnet for unanswered calls; or
B. A s'.""dardlztKI cash r.'und 0' 90 cents for each)'Par Irom 1981 through 1985In whtch It1e ele.. member: (I)
an Annet customer; Rnd ") claims that shelhe was chArged by Allnet lor UnR!Wered calls; or
C. An lIem/led credit toward Aline' long distance telAphone service of 30 cents 'ot pach minute 01 unan.red calls
;; 1981 through December 31.1985) and 'or
':=::'':!:::t;:!l":,::ee:/:;:r:rI
O. An /remlzfld cash r.fund of 30 ctmts for each minute of unanswered calls for which lhe Class membe, wa. chargPd
during the Class period (March 2, 19811hrouoh December 31. 1985) and lor which the Clast member ha.
not bRan prevtously reimbursed or credited.
To obtAin an IIemlled credIt or cash refund, the Cllts! member musl ltemlle and allest to ellch unanswered cltll 'Of which
rpfund or credit Is claimed. It the tOlal credits clnlmf'Jd by Cln's mpmbers eJ(ceed $525.000. eltch Clas, membpr
clalmln" Soltlen'l8nl Credits will receive hls/her/ o r.'a share of the lotal Settlement Credits IIYAllable. It the 101AI ctlsh
f fI
'
175.e8Ch Clnss member claiming a Cash Refund wtll recelvtt hls/her/ltl pro rllf.
'
, f!";a:; s,:pd:: ari:
Class mftmb." .. nMd not be current Allnet cu!!lomers to claim the standardltlMl and It"ml,ed crftdltl Allnet will
automatically open an account lor any Cla!!s membf!r who reque,ts c,edlts and executes an authorltatlon 10 o 'Wt"h
Account. "'" eh,,. ""'mber Incur. lOcal telephon8 company Cf'J charge m connecllon wilh U", Gp@f\lng 01 an AII".1
account. Allnet will lsue credit to the Clas.. mll9mher', act:f)Unt 10' 1M fun amount of .... ch tarvlcft cha'ge upon fII!CP'
ol' Iocat tephone companys bm lOf the !",vtce ctlll rge Anmt(" not rDOMlbM for any other..w.e char 'hat w."
t
;=J :!.';r::'ir:...8r;t;::\,:t!: =,1ctI (up 10 maxJrnum of S240.OOO) end of
administering the settlement described above.
The Sf'ltllemflnl Agrettment further provides thltl upon Iinal npproval 0' the seltlement. the Court ."." ante, a Judgment
dlsml!'lslng with prejudice An clalml of plaintiffs and members of the Class that hAve been or might have been asserted
In this acllon or refate 10 Allne"a billing And disclosure prllctlces lor unanswered cans.
Counsel for the Class hive Investlg"ted the 'acls and clrcumstances regarding the cl'dms egaln.. Allnet and thetr defenSM.
In ylpw ot those circumstances.
... tOf' the Cia,. have concfuded th.t thle settMment Agreement Ie ,.Ir and raesonable .nd In
the best Interest. of the Clan.
WlIS

an

II

II

II

coon

III. HOW TO FILE A PROOF OF CLAIM

To reretve SettlemtH'1t Credtta

a Cnh Refund. you must provIde all of the Informanon requested In lhe Proof 01 Cfalm
al lhe end of this Holtee and r.turn It 10 the Clerk 01 tM Courl al Ihe addreu fndk:aled below. postm.... tced no lalllM'
than July 28. 19811. The PrOo' of Claim must be signed by lhe Class member " the Class member I, not In Individual, An
authorized representative. An claims.re sublect to conflrmatton Ind proval. PLEASE FILL OUT fHE CLAIM FORM CAREFUllY.
Of

Of'.

IV. NOTICE OF SETTLEMENT HEAIIING

A settlement hearing wttI be held on June 28. 1988 befor.the Honorab'e Judge Anna Olgg' Ta or, Un"ad StatM
ft
I
T
a
::r::r;':t:t2:,:,:;: ::: ::=o.:. o=by ::' s:...:rr::;:'t::. nd
adequnt
At the selllemenl hearing. counsel tor lhe Class shall petition the Court 'or an aWArd of aUorney!' feM and expenses not
::'orS
:o. a:t1$f.;:' t :!r;rn":xt:!Ic,:;,ald'1:r',I:'t::lfree::.. r=r,:::I::nsM
shall not reduce any of Ihe Settlement Credits or Cash Refunds avallabte to Class memhe'"
Any Class member wl!';hlng to appear and he heard at the Spltlement Hearing must file a notice of Intenllon to apPAAr
with the Clerk 0' the Court, which nollce must be postmarked no later than June 18, 198f'- "Iuch CI.,s member
ohlp.clS 10 any one or mo,e terms 01 the Settlement Agreement. the notice of Intention to appflar must be BCC"ompanlftd by a
stalement 01 the basl'J tor this obJection. A Class member may nl'\o oblect 10 the Settlement Agre8mf'nt without
personally appearing at the Hearing by filing
written obJections to the Settlement with Ihe Clerk of the Court no laler than
June 18. 1988. A copy of the obJection! In any case must also be rved upon lead counset for the plalntl" clan. Sachno" Weaver
& Rubenstein. Ltd., AflenUon: Aline' S.Wemenf. 30 South Wacker Drive. Suite 2900, Chicago, 1111na1.60808. You will not be
heard at the Hearing entitled to conte!!! the Proposed Seltlement unless you me and
your object In
accordance wllh th.foregoing Instructions.
.

or

V. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS NOTICE 011 THIS LA

\181''''

WSUIT

"you have any qup.sllons about this Notice. the attached Prool nt Claim, the ....w.ull or the A.t....lnehl. you may write to

Ann g=E
:LUb:71:r;.i SHOUlI) BE MAtlE TO AllNET, COUNSEL FOIl PLAINTIFF.,

011 THE COURT.

We think you 'II find this issue to

be most informative and education
al. At last we've devoted some space
to the subject of computer viruses.
But we've done it in a way no
other magazine has yet done. For
the first time, you can read what
goes through the mind of someone
who deliberately plants viruses in
computer systems. And you can also
see what measures are being taken
to thwart this person's efforts.
We're happy to announce yet

another 2600 computer bulletin

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DC area. This one is PC
P ursuitable and you can reach it at
(703) 823-6591. Hopefully, we'll
expand to the west coast by next
issue.
Remember that 2600 meetings
now take place on the first Friday of
the month only. See page 41 for
details. Turnout has been quite good
in recent months.

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Summer 1988

2600 Magazine

Page 3

Form

by Ross M. Greenberg
What Is a Trojan?
Back in the g o o d o l d d ays ( before
the re were c o m pute rs ) , the re was this
bunch of soldiers who had no chance of
beating a superior force or of even making
it i nto their fortress. They had this nifty
i dea: presen t the other s i de with a g ift.
Once the gift had been accepted, soldiers
hiding within the gift would sneak out and
overtake the enemy from within.
We can o n l y t h i n k o f the i ntel lectual
giants of the day who would accept a gift
large enough to h o use e n e m y soldiers
without checking its contents. Obviously,
they had l i ttle o p p o rtunity to watch old
World War II m ovies to see the same
device used over and over again.
C o ns i d e r t h e types o f people w h o
would b e thrilled a t t h e concept of owning
t h e i r own roug h h e w n , l a r g e w o o d e n
horse ! Perhaps they wanted t o b e t h e first
one on their block, or something silly like
that.
Anyway, you're all aware of the story of
The Trojan Horse.
Bringing ourselves a bit closer to the
reali ty we've all grown to know and love ,
there's a m odern day equivalent: getting a
gift from your B B S or user group which
contains a little gem which will attack your
hard disk, destroying whatever data it con
tains.
In order to understand how a potential
ly useful program can cause such damage
when corrupted by some m isguided soul,
i t's useful to understand how your disk
works, and how absurdl y e asy i t is to
c a u s e d a m a g e to t h e data contai n e d
thereon. So , a brief technical discussion o f

Page 4

2600 Magazine

of Protection
the o peration of your disk is in order. For
those who aren' concerned , turn the page
or something.
Data is preserved on a disk in a variety
of d i fferent physical ways having to do
with how the data is encodi ng in the actual
recording of that data. The actual struc
ture of that data , however, is the sam e
between MS-DOS m achines. Other oper
ating system s have a diffe rent structure ,
but that doesn't concern us now.
Each disk has a num be r of "tracks " .
T h e s e a r e s o m e t i m es c a l l e d cyl i nders
from the old type I B Mers . These are the
sam e people who call hard disks DAS Ds
( D i rect Access Storage Devices), so we
can safely ignore their techno-speak, and
j ust c a l l t h e m tracks. Tracks c a n b e
thought of a s the individual little grooves
on an audio record, sort of.
Anyway, each track is subdivided into
a num ber of sectors. Each track has the
sam e number of sectors. Tracks are num
bered, as are sectors. Any given area on

"Typical Trojan programs

cause damage to your
data, and were designed
to do so by the worms
who writhe in delight at
causing this damage. "
the disk can be accessed if a request is
made to read or write data into or out of
Track-X, Sector Y. The read or write com
mand is given to the disk controller, which
is an interface between the com puter itself
and the hard disk. The co ntroller figures

S ummer 1988

For You and

Your Computer

out what commands to send to the hard

disk, the hard disk responds and the data
is read or written as directed.
The first track on the hard disk typically
will contain a small program which i s read
from the hard disk and executed when you

to the next cluster. That i ndex is called the

File Allocation Table, com monly abbreviat
ed to " FAT" . The FAT contains an e ntry for
each cluster on the di sk. An FAT entry can

fi rst power up your m achin e . The powe r

u p s e q u e nce i s c a l l e d " b o o ti n g " y o u r
m achi n e , a n d therefore t h e first track i s
known as th e "boot track" .
In order to read i nformation from your
disk in a log i cal sequence , there has to be
s o m e s o rt of i n d e x . A n u n us u a l i n d e x
m e th o d w a s s e l e c t e d f o r M S - D O S .
I m ag i n e g o i n g t o t h e c a rd i n d e x i n a

i nd icate s that the associated clu ster has

be e n d a m ag e d s o m e h o w and t h a t i t

have a few values: ones which i ndicate

that the cl uster is unused, another which

should be marked a s a "bad cluster" , and

a pointer to the next cluster for a given file.
This allows for what is cal led a linked l i st:
once you start looking u p clusters associ
ated with a given fi le, each FAT entry tells
you what the next cluster is. At the end of
the linked list is a special indicator which

l ibrary, looking up the title you desire , and

getti ng a place in another i ndex which tells
you where o n the racks the book is stored.

i ndicates that there are no more clusters

associated with the file.

Now, when you read the book, you discov

er that only the first chapter of the book is
there . In order to find the next c hapter of
the book, you have to go back to that mid
dle i ndex, which tells you where the next
chapter is stored. This process continues
until you get to the end of the book.

FAT stored on your disk, but no one really

knows what the second copy was intend
ed for. Often , if the first copy of the FAT is
corrupted for some reason , a clever pro
g ram m e r could recover i nformatio n from
the second copy to restore to the primary
FAT. These clever programmers can be

There are actually two copies of the

Sounds pretty convolute d , right? You

called "hackers" , and should not be con

bet! However, this is pretty much how MS

DOS does its "cataloguing" of files.
The d i re c to ry structure o f M S - DO S
allows for you t o look up an item called the

fused with the thieves who break into com

puter systems and steal thi ng s , or the
"worms" [Joanne Dow gets credit for that
phrase !] who would get joy out of causing
you heartache !
But that heartache is exactly what can
happen if the directory (which contains the
pointer to the first cluster a fil e uses), the
FAT (wh ich c ontai n s that l i n ked l i st to

"first cluster" . A cluster represents a set of

co nti g u o u s ("touching o r i n co ntact"
according to Random H ouse) tracks and
sectors. It i s the smallest amount of i nfor
matio n which the fil e structure of M S-DOS
knows how to read or write .

other a re a s on the disk which the f i l e

Based on the first cluster number as

stored i n the directory, the first portio n of a
f i l e can be read. When the i nformati o n
contained there i n i s exhausted, M S-DOS
goes to that secondary i ndex for a poi nter

uses), or other areas of the d i s k g e t cor

rupted.
And that's what the l i ttle worms who
create T rojan programs do: they cause
what at first appears to be a useful pro-

S ummer 1988

(continued on next page)

Page 5

2600 Magazine

Protecting
g ram to e ve ntually corrupt the im portant
parts of your disk. This can be as simple
as changing a few bytes of data, o r can
include wiping entire tracks clean.
Not all progra ms which write to you r
hard disk are bad ones, obviously. Your
word proce ssor, spreadsheet, database,
and utility progra m s have to write to the
hard d i sk. Som e of the DOS program s
(such as FOR M AT ) , if u sed i m prope rly,
can also erase po rtions of your hard disk
causing yo u m assive a m o unts of grief.

You'd be surprised what damage the sim

p l e " DEL" com m and c a n do with j u s t a
sim ple typo.
But what defines a Trojan program is
its delivery m echanism: the fact that you're
run n i ng s o m e t h i n g y o u d idn't e x pect.
Typical Trojan progra m s cause damage to
your data, and were designed to do so by
the worms who writhe in delight at causing
this damage . May they rot in hell -- a m i nd
is a terrible thing to waste !
Considering the personality required to
cause such damage , you can rest assured

that they have few friends, and even their

mother doesn't like to be in the same room
with them . They sit back and chortle about
the damage they do with a few other lowly
worm s. This is thei r entire social universe.
You should pity the m . I know that I do.
What is a Virus?

Troj a n progra m s a re but a d e l ivery

m echanism , as stated above . They can be
im plemented in a clever manner, so that
they only trigger the malicious part on a
certain date, whe n your disk contains cer
tai n i nformation or whateve r. H oweve r
they're coded, though, they typically affect
the disk only in a destructive m anner o nce
triggered.

Page 6

2600 Magazine

Yourself

A new breed o f p ro g ra m s has t h e

capability of n o t o n l y reserving m alicious
damage lor a given evenl's occurrence,
but of also replicating itself as well.
This i s what people refer to when they
mention the term "Virus Program".
Typically, a virus will spread itself by
replicating a portion of itself o nto another
program. Later, when thai normally safe
program i s run it will, in part, execute a set
of instructions which will infect other pro
gram s and then pote n tially, trigger the
Trojan portion o f the program contai ned
within the virus.
The dange r of the virus program i s
twofold. First, it contains a Trojan which
will cause damage to your hard disk. The
second danger i s the reason why every
one is busy building bomb shelters. This
danger i s that the virus program will infect
other program s and they in turn will infect
other program s and so forth. Since it can
also infect programs on your floppy disks,
y o u c o u l d u n k n o w i n g l y i nf e c t o t h e r
machines ! Pretty dangerous stuff, all right!
Kenneth van Wyck, one of the com put
er folks ove r at Le high U n i versity, fi rst
brought a particular virus to the attention
o f the com puter com m unity. This virus
i nfects a program , which every M S-DOS
c o m p u te r
m ust
h ave ,
called
COMMAN D .COM. This i s the Com m and
L i n e I n te r prete r and is t h e i nte rface
between your keyboard and the MS-DOS
operating system itself. Whatever you type
at the C> prompt will be interpreted by it.
Wel l , the virus subverts this intended
function, causing the i nfection of neighbor

ing COM MAND.COMs before continuing

with normal functionality of the com m and
you type d . Afte r a ce rta i n n u m b e r o f

S ummer 1988

From

Infection

"infections" , the Trojan aspect of the pro

gram goes off , causing you to lose data.
The program mer was clever. But still a
wo rm . And sti l l deserv i n g of co nte m pt
i nstead of respect. T h i n k of what good
purposes the program mer could have put
his or her talents to instead of creating this
dam age. And consider what this program
mer m ust do, in covering up what they've
done. They certainly can't tell anyone what
they've accom plished. Justifiable hom icide
comes to mind, but since the worm s they
must hang around are probably as disrep
utable as they are , they must hold thei r l it
tle creation a secret.
A pity. Ho pefu lly, the worm is losing
s l e e p . O r g e tti n g a sore neck l o o k i n g
b e h i n d t h e m wo n d e r i ng w h i c h of t h e i r
"friends" are gonna turn them i n .
T h e Challenge t o t h e Worm
When I first released a program to try
to thwart the i r d e m e nted l i ttle efforts, I
published this letter. What I say in it sti ll
holds:
"As for the designer of the vi rus pro
gram : m ost l i kely an i m potent adolescent,
i ncapable of normal social relationships,
and attem pting to prove their own worth to
themselves through these types of terrorist
attacks.
" Never succeeding in that task (o r in
any other), since they have no worth, they
will one day take a look at themselves and
what they've done in thei r past, and k i l l
the m s e l ves i n disgust. T h i s i s a Good
Thing, since it saves the taxpayers' m o ney

son . I chal lenge them to upload a virus or

other Trojan horse to m y BBS that I can't
disarm . It is doubtful the chall e nge will be
take n : the profil e of such a perso n pro
hibits the m from attacking those who can
fight back . Alas, having a g o w i th this
lowlife would be amusing for the five m in
utes it takes to d i sarm whateve r t h e y
i nvent.
"Go ahead , you good-for-nothing little
slimebucket: m ake my day ! "
Alas, somebOdy o u t there o pted t o d o
t h e cowardly thi ng a n d use t h e FLUSHOT
programs as a vehicle fo r wrecki ng sti l l
more destruction on people like you . The
F L USH OT3 program was red i str i b uted
along with a co m panion program to aid
you i n reading the documentation. It was
renamed FLUS HOT4. And the reader pro
gram was turned into a Trojan itself.

(continued on page 28)

,...""
...
....
""
..

which normally would be wasted on thera

py and treatment of thi s m i screant.
"If they really want a challenge, they'll
try to destroy my hard disk on m y B BS,
instead of the disk of some innocent per-

Summer 1988

2600 Magazine

Page 7

th.e d.a.rk. sid.e

by The Plague
I'm sure you've heard about computer
viruses. But what you were probably fed
was misinfo rm a ti o n . This arti c l e wi l l
attempt t o de-mystify your pe rceptio n of
the computer virus, give you the facts, as
well as teach you how to create your very
own virus. This is not a second-hand or
bystander e xplanation of viruses; I have
had first-hand experie nce in the writing,
distribution, and tracking of my very own
virus, so I'm quite knowledgeable on the
subject. M o st viruses do destro y data.
They also spread som ewhat exponentially
when unnoticed and not controlled. The
beauty of the com puter virus is that it per
fectly m i m ics a real virus or small organ
ism , thus having the potential of being a
great tool in artificial intelligence. I will not
write about how to protect yourself from a
virus, because that would defeat the pur
pose of thi s article , and anyone with com
mon sense already knows how to prevent
being i nfected.
Recently, viruses have been a very hot
issue in the m edia, but I assure you that
I'm n o t j u m p i n g o n t h e bandwago n
because my virus has been around long
before the term "com puter virus" was ever
mentioned in the media. The media has a
very shallow understanding of what a virus
is. Exam ple s of the media's reporting of
com puter viruses include the article in the
February 1, 1988 issue of Newsweek writ
ten by William D. Marbach and Richard
Sandza called " I s your com puter infected?
Syste m s fal l to s i l e n t and contag i o u s
killers." Another report appeared on ABC
World News Tonight in late February, and
I must say that the com puter ani m ation
was quite good. It showed the virus (a pink
Page 8

2600 Magazine

spiny blinking sphere) as it e ntered the

resistors on the m otherboard (come on,
are the se guys for real ? ) . This was fol
lowed by a g u y w h o clai m e d to be t h e
i nventor of the virus, which is absolutely
bogus, because the com puter virus was
not invented by any one perso n . I don't
even know why he decided to claim the
credit -- irs nothing to be proud of.
M y e xpe rie nce with viruses co m e s
from writi ng CyberAIDS, a virus for the
Apple II fam ily of com puters. This is the
fi rst and only virus for the Apple which
o perates under Pro DOS that I know of.
Due to ease of u se of the ProDOS MLI
( Machine Language I nte rface) , it was
i ncredibly easy to write the virus. This is
because I did n't need to deal with the
hardware directly, only make a few simple
system calls (Le., read block, write block,
o pen fil e , close file, etc. ) . The fact that
Pro DOS runs on the e ntire spectrum of
the Apple II fam ily also allows my virus to
reach the broadest audience available .
The ProDOS MLI i s ve ry s i m i l ar to the
operating systems of most personal com
puters, m ini-compute rs, and mainframes.
Thus the virus can be adapted to run on
any com puter, so don't make the sam e
m istake that the Apple community made ,
that is in thinking that a virus will never
appear for their computer. Operating sys
tem s with similar calls and characteristics
as Pro D O S M L I are M S - D O S , U n i x ,
AmigaOOS, Atan's TOS, and Macintosh's
OS.
I was asked whether I had any moral
fee l i n g s a b o u t v i ruse s , or w h e t h e r I
thought that they were wrong , or evil, or
whatever. My feelings are the fol lowing : I
don't care one way or the other. If people's

S ummer 1988

c:>f'V"ir'-1ses
data i s destroyed , the n so be i t. If people
are stupid e n ough to accept pirated soft

giving the m at least a good start.

My m a i n concern abo u t my project was

ware, the n the y de serve to be p u n i shed.

how to track t h e s pread o f the viru s , i n

The fact i s that m o st busi n e s s PC u sers

order t o gather data. T h i s data cou l d be

will never be infected w i th a virus u n l e s s

t h e y downloa d p u blic do m a i n or pirated

u se d in the future to m a ke better, stronger,

and m ore deceptive viruse s. The technolo

software. A l s o , busi n e s s e s m ay be affect

gy behind the virus has com e a l o ng way

ed if som eo n e in the organization decides

s i nce the 1970's. It's a field yet to be fully

to i nfect t h e syste m , in w h i c h ca se the

explored and appreciated by the com puter

destruct i o n is not preven t a b l e, because

com m u n i ty. I, for o ne , h o p e that people

the person d o i ng the i nfecti ng wou l d have

becom e m ore aware of the com pu ter virus

enjoyed des troying da ta even if viruses

and that they take measures to protect

didn't exist. A s for people who u se their

computers for ho m e/entertainment/hobby,

they are the o nes m o st su sceptible to the

viru s revo l ut i o n. They sho u l d be wary of

software that was not previo u sly tested by
other s . Nowa d a y s, i t' s beco m i n g qui te
d a ngero u s to a ccept s o f t w are 'off t h e
street'. I hate to u se t h i s expression, but
'viruses d o n't kill data, people kill data'. A

liThe beauty of

the computer virus

is that it perfectly
mimics a real virus
or small organism.

II

viru s i s perf e c t l y harmle s s u n l e s s i t i s

bei ng spread b y people wi l l i ngly/u nwi l l i ng
l y. T h eref ore, p e o ple m u s t t a k e t h e
re spo n s i b i l ity t o protect them selves a n d

their data. The !deal scenar i o wo u l d be

compu ter compa nies rewri ting their o per

others by taking precauti o n s. Th i s w i l l not

ating system s to be virus-resi stant. In the

be d i scussed i n this article.

l o ng run, the computer virus may strength

Creating a virus i s by no m ea n s a s i m
ple project. Anyone who has e ver attem pt

en o u r d ef e n s e s a g a i n s t d a t a l o s s ,
whether i t be due to viruses, trojan horses ,

ed t o wr i t e a v i r u s , or a n y c y be r n et i c
orga n i s m for that m atter, w i l l tell y o u about

power o utages, or unauthorized u sers. My

m ai n h o pe is that the threat of the viru s

the d i fficu l t i e s and tribulations involved. If

w i l l h e l p curb software p iracy a n d a l l ow

anyt h i n g , I'm quite u p set that m ost peo p le

d o n ' t rea l i ze w ha t an acco m pl is h m e n t thi s

software co m panie s to pro sper. If a per

s o n k n o w s that he s t a n d s a c h a n ce of

i s. One person even tol d m e , "Hey, any

be i ng i nfec te d by a c ce p t i n g pirated or

bo d y co uld wri te a viru s. T h e re a s o n I

modem distributed software , he w i l l realize

never wrote one is becau se i t's wrong to

do s o." We l l , he wa s wro ng at the t i m e

that he's m uch better off buying the soft

ware and receiving the docum e ntati o n as

becau se i t i s quite d ifficult t o wri te a virus

well.

com pletely fro m scratc h. But perhaps thi s

H ow The Virus Works

article will al low anyone t o wri te a v irus by

Before I go any further, let me just say that

Summer

1988

(continued on next page)

2600 Magazine
I'al(e 9

straight

frc>IX1

a virus shou l d be written i n asse m bly lan

g uage, 'C', o r a n y o the r l a n g u a g e that

the Amiga vi rus, which wo uld not affect

al lows l ow-level functions (byte manipula

standard disks but would destroy protect

the destruction of protected software (i.e .,

ed disks due to their non sta ndard f i l e /d isk

tion, syste m ca lls, m e m o ry m o v e s ) . I

fo rm a t ) .

do ubt you can write a v irus in BAS IC o r

PASCAL (a troj a n horse m aybe, but cer

them d i stinct from t roj a n horses. Whereas

a trojan horse program simply wipes out

m ay be wri t t e n i!"l Prolog o r L I S P a n d

inco rporate artificial inte lligence

your hard drive when you run it o nce or

twice, a v irus will attach itself to normal

As an example, i'li discuss t h e

CyberAIDS virus, which was written p urel y
in
"

6502 A s se m bly. Cyb e r A IDS

applications o r disks and make them carri

is a n

ap p l i ca tion r e sid e n t' v i r u s ( s e e Virus

Types).

How The Virus Spreads

All v i r u se s sp read This is what m akes

tainl y not a virus). Viru s e s in the fut u r e

ers.

Most viruse s must m ake them

selves perf'1anentn the storage device i:1

order to continue reproduction. See !tie
Virus Types section for a detailed
description of the various Methods that
viruses use for reproduction and where
tiley may hide themselves
After attaching itself to a file or disk

that was previously u n i n fec ted , the actions

of any part i c ular virus may vary, but the

virus wi l l check the d is k co un ter b e fo re

pr oc ee ding to any intended action o ther

than rep rodu ct i o n The disk co unt e r , an

.

individual byte som ewhere o n the infected

di sk , kee p s track of how many ti m e s the

viru s has acce s sed that particular di s k,
a n d thu s a s sure s t h at the vi r u s will not

Care must be

taken t ha t the virus will

only infect one file each tim e the infected

ap;Jiication

runs,

rtlUS making

sure that the

time before the original application exe

cutes is kept to a minimum. This will a l l o w

the virus to go unnoticed during the user s
'

da ily activities. You can run a virus-infect

e d program a hundred t im e s and it will

behave n orm al ly with the e xc e ptio n that it
will make

copies

01 the v iru s portio n and

attach itself to other disks/applications, but

when yo u run it the final time, it will per

form its inten ded activity. Since only tha t

copy of the virus has detonated, you are

still

left with perhap s doze ns o f i nfecte d

file s which will not d eto n a te until they are

run several hundred time s ( and thu s will
spread the virus even m ore).
T he be nefit s o f an a ppl ica t io n

d e tonate pre m aturely. So m e vir u s e s are

resident

to tally h arm le s s and print a s i m pl e text

v i ru s s u ch as Cybe rAI D S are s e v e ral.

m e s sa g e ( such as the Macintosh virus),

Since no new files are ever created on the

while o thers are cr e ate d to cause h arm

disk by the virus, the user will prob ably not

a nd/o r to d e s tro y data (like CyberAIDS).

notice a n yt hi n g is wro ng. Instead, normal

T he re are still o ther viru se s which were

a p plicatio ns are m od ified b y the vir u s to

not o ri g i na lly m eant to be destructive, but

execute v i ra l cod e . When individual fi l e s

due to the fact that they come between an

o p e r ating s y s t e m a n d it's applic atio n s

cau s e h a r m n o n ethe le s s. This harm is

u s u a l l y in the fo r m of system crashe s or

Page ]()

26()O Magazine

(non-text executable code fil e s) are infect

ed the viru s can be spread i n three ways:

(1) The man u al copying of the file from
,

disk to disk by the u ser. User-group disk

Summer 1988

the

sC>"CI.rce

distri bution can achieve the best res u l ts

when this method of reprod uction is used .

a. Make sure vol u m e is not write

protected

(2) The automatic copyi n g of viral code

Ily the viru s itse l f to non-i nfected files i n
other drives or t h e hard d isk. U s ua l l y
s erves t o g ive the virus a better foothold
within a particular user's software l i brary.

(3)

The transfer of i n fected files o ver

the m o de m . The i n fe c ti o n h as a g o o d
c hance (wh e ther by acc i d e n t or o n pur
plose ) of reachi ng public domain or pi rate
bulletin boards . The d istri buti o n of that file

b. Make sure vo l u m e is on l i n e
( n o I/O error)

2. I n cre m e n t d i s k c o u n te r ( S e e

NOT E 1) a n d go t o destroy (See NOTE2)

if necessary.

3.

Check for enough space on vol

ume.

4 . Choose candidate f i l e .

a . Fi le m ust b e a system or appli

cation fi l e .

wi l l be i ncredi b l e . I n fected fi les may also

b . File m ust not be al ready infect

b e s pread thro ugh LAN's ( L o c a l Are a

ed (cho o se ap pro pri ate m e tho d for

ide nti fying i nfected fil es) .

Nletworks) .

c. Fi le m ust be small enough to

Application Resident Virus Outline

A. INI T I A L IZ E .

1.

a l l o w viral attac h m e n t (so t h a t t h e

F i n d curren t locat i o n o f virus i n

appl icati o n and virus c o d e bo t h fit i n

m e mory.
2. Relocate itself to predefi ned m e m

m e m o ry).
d . If the fi le is locked then unlock

ory locati o n .

3.

it.

M a ke sure D O S i s a c t i ve a n d

ready t o accept system calls.

4. Move original application header

1NThe

V irus

may

even call its creator

and allow the

C.INF ECT.

1. Open candidate file .

2. Load first block of candidate fi le

i n to a m ai n . buffer.

3.

Take first

by1es) and save to

4 . Calculate viral location in new fi le .

a . V i raI . Addr=

transfer of data

5.

from t he infected
"
sys tem.

(6

alt.buffer (also known as S H ) .

Appl icatio n . S tarl. Addr

Length.of.Application

Store a J U M P Viral. Addr at begin

n i ng of file.

6. Rewrite main.buffer.

7. Set file poi n ter to end of fi le (for

appe n d ) .

(6 by1es)

back to ori g i nal m e m ory.

B. S EARC H .

1.

C h o ose ra n d om vo l u m e (d i s k

,device).

8. Wri te the alt.buff (6 bytes).

9 . Write the viral code afterwards.
10. Cl ose candidate file.
D . DESTROY (Optional).

1. Lock out Keyboard and Reset Key

if possible.

Summer 1988

(continued on next page)

Page 11

2600 Magazine

2. Destroy data.
a. R e c o g n i z e all d i s k device s
( hard disks, floppies, 3 .5" , ram) .
b. Wipe out the directory ( FAT)
blocks of each device .
c. Wipe out key block for each file
in each d irectory block.
3 . Do graphics and music (optional).
a. Totally up to virus writer.
4. Present text message (optional ) .
a . Totally up to virus writer.
E . LEAVE.
1 . Jump back to Application.Start.Addr
a. T h u s conti nue as i f nothing
had happe ned.

unless the viral code can run anywhere in

memory, it must be able to relocate itself
i nto a pre-set memory location where it will
run.

NOTE 1 : The disk counter i s a particu

lar byte on the disk that the virus uses to
hold the value of how many times that
vi rus has run with that particular disk
i nserted (active).
NOTE2: DESTROY or LEAVE is exe
cuted depending o n the status of the disk
counter.
Virus Types
Application Resident:
H i d e s in a p p l i c at i o n s ( s e e Vi r u s
Outline). Patches an appli cation ( o r sys
tem file, .EXE, .COM , . SYS file) so that the
virus i s appended at the end of the file and
a call to the virus is provided at the begin
ning of the file. The original beginning of
the file i s saved to the end of the file as
wel l , as it w i l l be moved back ( S H is
m oved back to where JC is, see Figure 8)
i nto place at the beginning of the file when
the virus executes, thus allowing the appli
cation to execute normally after the viral
chores are completed. Due to the different
position of the viral code in each infected

of the original file's executable code) .

J C Jump Code (jum ps t o the address
of the virus).
VC Viral Code (see Virus Outline).
EOF End of File.

(a) Normal (not i nfected file)

t----t---------------------t----t

I SH I rest of application I EOFI

t----t---------------------t----t

(b) I nfected file

t----t---------------------t----t---t-----t

I JC I rest of application I SH I VC I
EOF I
t----t---------------------t----t----t-----t

SH

Standard Header (fi rst few bytes

Boot Block Resident:

Activated upon boot . U sually loads
additional program code from other blocks
on disk. This is quite i nvisi ble as files are
never altered , and blocks used by the
vi rus on disk are designated as busy for
protecti on. The Amiga vi rus is a perfect
exam ple.

Memory R esident:
R e s i d e s in me m o r y . U s u a l l y a
terminate and stay utility that can be acti
vated by any event (clock, keyboard , DOS
call). On multi-tasking systems (such as
Unix, Xenix, OS/2) it can be a background
task. It will usually allocate m e m o ry for
itself from the memory m anager.

file ( because of different file lengths) and

Page 12

2600 Magazine

Summer 1988

(continued on page 14)

BUILDING A RED BOX

by J.R. ''Bob'' Dobbs

Circuit Operation

Essentially, the red box is a

device used to fool the phone com
pany into thinking you are

Each time the pushbutton is

pressed, it triggers half of ICl, con
figured as a monostable multivi

depositing coins into a payphone.

Every time you drop a coin into a
payphone, the phone signals the
type of coin inserted with one or
more bursts of a combination of

brator to energize the rest of the

circuit for a length of time deter
mined by the setting of the coin
selector switch. This in tum starts
the other half of ICl, configured as

1 700 hz and 2200 hz. The tone

bursts are coded as follows:
Nickel: One 60 millisecond
pulse

How to Use It

an astable multivibrator, pulsing

on and off at regular intervals at a
rate determined by the SDk pot
between pins 12 and 13. The out
put of the astable thus alternately
powers of IC2, configured as a
square wave oscillator, providing
the required 1700 hz and 2200 hz
to the op amp which acts as a
buffer to drive the speaker.

Operation is simple. Simply dial

a long distance number ( some
areas require you to stick in a gen
uine nickel first ) , wait for the

Assemble the circuit as you

wish. Component placement is not
critical. I found the easiest method

ACTS computer to demand your

cash, and press the "deposit" bu t
ton on the red box for each coin
you want to simulate. The coin

was to use point-to-point wiring

on a "universal" PC grid board
with solder ringed holes. Use sock
ets if you aren't a whiz with a sol

signals are coupled from the red

box into the phone with a small
speaker held to the mouthpiece.
For local calls, either you must
first d eposit a genuine nickel
before "simulating" more coins or
place your call through the opera
tor with 0 + 7d. Use some care
when the operator is on the line -

dering iron. Be sure to leave easy

access to the potentiometers for
alignment.

sometimes they catch on to your

beeper ploy.

+9v supply to pin 14 of IC2 and

temporarily disconnect the 0.01uF

Dime: Two 60 millisecond puls

es separated by 60 milliseconds
Qu arter: Five 35 millisecond
pulses separated by 35 millisec
onds

Construction

Alignment

and Testing

For alignment, a frequency

counter and triggered sweep oscil
loscope are extremely handy (but
not absolutely necessary ).
Install a temporary jumper from

Summer 1988

(continued on page 22)

2600 Magazine

Page 13

how it's done

(continuedfrom page 12)

D OS Resid ent:
A virus that's patched i nto DOS and
infects any disk, file, or DOS on disk that's
accessed during the time that the i nfected
DOS is active. Since DOS is the program
which runs on the com puter 98% of the
tim e , it would be advantageous to add
viral code to a frequently executed portion
of DOS (such as Read Block code). The
infected DOS will usually attempt to patch
any DOS on disk and to m ake it infected.
Care must be taken to prevent crashes,
thus making sure the virus will only patch
DOS versions that can be succe ssfully
alte red by the virus. Any unrecognized
DOS on a disk should be left alone.
Application Oriented :
A virus that's integrated into an appli
ca ti o n a n d w o r k s c l o s e l y w i t h i t .
Application orie nted trojan horses are
quite com mon, but viruses that are inte
grated i nto an application are hardly ever
seen . For exam ple , a packing (file com
pression) program such a s ARC o r a ter
m i nal p rogram that i n fects files before
packing or transm itting them .
Types o f Viral Action
Complete Disk Data Destruction:
Affects floppy, 3.5', hard disks, ram
disks. Usually the m o st co m m on action
take n by a viru s . It i s quick and is not
noticed until it is too late . Care m ust be
taken to prevent the user from prematurely
stopping the destruction by locking out the
keyboard or by giving a text message that
w i ll m ake t h e m fe e l c o m fortable (I. e . ,
' Loading Data Segm e nt", 'Checking for
files').

Page 14

2600 Magazine

Slow Disk Data Deg radation :

Sim ilar to above , except data is slowly
destroyed on a disk with each activation of
the virus. Usually a disk block at a time,
but m ay be done a byte or even a bit at a
lime. This is perhaps the most sinister viral
actio n as it will take qu ite a long ti m e
before anyone notices anything is wrong.
Also known as the 'disk bit spray'.
Slow Memory Data D eg radation:
Data i n memory is m odified a byte or a
bit at a time . Usually done by a memory
resident or background task virus. This will
slowly destroy program code and data as
the person is working at the com puter.
Wei rd things may happen and usually data
i n t e g r i t y i s c o m p ro m i se d or program
crashes will occur at random times. This is
also known as the 'memory bit spray'.
Hardware Destruction:
A virus will attem pt to de stroy hard
ware if possible. It usually attem pts things
like overloading the address or data bus
by atte mpti ng to activate all peri pheral
cards at the sam e tim e . 'Head Slam ming'
may also be done , a process which allows
older hard disks to have their read/write
heads slammed at high velocities i nto the
parking position or into the side of the disk
enclosure . If any mech anical parts are
pre s e n t in the co m puters ( re lays ) , the
virus will attem pt to wear out or jam these
devices by turning them on and off at very
high speeds. This may also destroy vari
ous video and uart chips. Also , the virus
will attem pt to alter the tim e and date in
any clock card or chip, or even destroy the
pre - s e t con fi g u ration in batte ry-backed
ram.

Summer 1988

and

w hy

Modem manipulation :

. C;.4t ()NE()FQtJR<
COIVIPOTER BULlETIN
.. BOARDs ToDAVI<

A v i rus that usua l l y attacks B B S sys

tems and is a m e m o ry resident vi rus. It will
activate i tsel f d uri ng the time the B B S is
not i n use and play wi th the m odem and
the phone l i n e . I t does t h i n gs l ike cal l
E u ro pe directly o r call the pol i ce over and
over. This vi rus may actua l l y ca use the
infected pe rso n to go to j a i l o r i ncrease
t h e i r p h o n e bil l or both . T h e virus may
even cal l its creator and a ll ow the transfer
of data from the infected system.

..

26QOBBS#1>

<9i4LtJ()60 . .
2600 BBS#2

(CENriALOFFlCE)
914';'234,:;3260
*

2600.BBSIt3
..
(YOYoP'fi4E>

, .
.

That concludes this article. I h o pe you

enjoyed it. I would l i ke to see so me m o re
viruses out there . To write and distribute a
virus you m ust lose every shred of moral
f i b e r, and if I k n o w the readers of this
m agazine, there will be a com puter virus
plague i n the very near future. So have

. ...

402564::4518

2600JmsIt4

(BEEHIVE)
'()3';'823659i
ALL ()PEN 24liOURS
.
. .. .

fun, kids. I f you write a successful virus,

d o n ' t h esitate to re l e ase i t , a n d by a l l
m eans se n d t h e so u rc e c o d e t o 2600.

We'd l i ke to hear from you .

Summer 1988

2600 Magazine

Page 15

A READER 'S REPLY

by The Rancid G rapefruit
Que ry : "What happens to i n e p t c o m
puter cri m i nals who g e t caught?"
Answer: "They open u p 'security' com
panies and start preaching t o a n extremely
g u l l i ble p u b l i c -- usually casting the m
selves as so m e kind o f 'hacker e x pe rt'
whereas the only thing they are 'experts'
at is getting caught."
The opening com ments have absol ute
ly nothing to do with Captain Zap, whose
reputati o n is i m peccable , and we m ost
certainly would not want people to m iscon
strue the com ments as a vicious attack on
his person. Lord, no . .. .
O bviously, we disagree w i t h Captain
Zap's brilliant observations on the state of
"Hacking and Phreaki ng" . If we did agree
with h i m , we'd hardly be writing this swell
response , eh?
"The ongoing wave of com puter crim e
that is be i n g reported i n t h e m edia around
the world shows" the shallowness of the
m ed ia's never e nding quest for anything
that will titillate a technology-ignorant pub
lic, and push u p the ratings of whateve r
publication or feed happens to be catering
to the public's fear of technology on that
particular occasion.
"An I n te rp re t a t i o n o f Com p u t e r
Hacking" is just that: Captain Zap's per
sonal opinion on the subject. I n the first
several paragraphs, Zap essentially sum
m arizes the opening chapter of almost any
g i v e n " Be g i n n e r ' s I n t r o d u c t i o n to
C o m puters" and s o m e h ow manage s to
pass off observations that have already
been made a few hundred times as his
own "ideas". The only real mystery to us i s
why he d e c i d e s o n " 1 6 . M e gabytes of
RAM" as an arbitrary amount of memory
Page 1 6

2600 Magazine

that "today's personal computers" are sup

posedly equipped with.
T h i s l e a d s i n t o the " i nform a t i o n i s
power" spiel, and the inevitable arrival of
ISDN wherein phones and cc. m puters will
beco m e one glorious entity and l ive happi
ly ever after.
All of this ends up with Zap giving you
his opinion on "The Dawn of Phreaking",
the usual mention of Drape r and blue box
ing, fol lowed by a sum mary of the boxes
that matches slang to function, and term i
nati n g with a si m pl i fi e d acco u n t of t o l l
fraud where Z a p babbles about t h e vari
ous OCC's for a whi le.
Although we were very i m pressed by
the programm ing ingenuity of the supplied
"Wargames dialer" listing , and find our
selves constantly looking to the first sec
tion of Zap's article when we feel lost or at
a need for guidance, we will regrettably
have to let it stand. Since aside from the
ill-chosen "highlights of yesteryear" there
is nothing there th a t hasn't been dis-

"Rarely is the purpose of

a conference to 'pass
information over to other
hackers that can work
on a problem and plan
for more tactical attacks
to the target system. ",
c u s s e d o r o t h e rw i s e s u m m arized t o o
many times in the past. A s such it would
be a waste of our time to do so yet again.
H a c k e r C o m m u n ic a ti o n s ! S h h h h h !

Summer 1988

TO CAPTAIN ZAP
Secre t s bei n g exchanged I

and actua l l y try som e t h i n g awful l i ke mak

W h i l e we d o n ' t d i s p u te t h e fact that

people do cal l each o t h e r , so m e t i m e s in

i n g a bil copy of someone e l se ' s program

and xeroxing its m anual , it's our pe rsonal

large groups hooked together o n a confer

be l i e f that the wo rld will in a l l probab i l i t y

e nce (without paying for i t , g a sp l ) , rarely i s

the purpose o f a confere nce t o 'pass i n fo r

not com e to a n e n d . O f course , we c o u l d

be wrong

m ation o v e r to o t h e r hackers that c a n work

A l m o s t all po t e n t i a l hackers are l i tt l e

on a p ro b l e m and c o m p a re re s u l t s a n d

k i d s with a lot o f t i m e o n thei r hands. and

most o f those kids w i l l never get anywhere

p l a n f o r m o re tactical attacks to th e ta r g e t
syste m : The u s u a l rea so n a co nf ere n ce

s t a rts i s beca u s e o n e k i d i s b o r n d a n d

v; a n l s to t a l k to a

b u n c h of

h i s pe e r :: at the

sa.m e ti m e . W!>at takes p l ac e s o n a : r-:l 0 st

:, n y

(j i v e n
nfere nce is a bu
(u:F:1 trlQ kds h a ra s s i : g 1 S P S c pe r J
i n [uro pc .
8i dnnc: y'ing arl],c r",i'.: t h e' },

becau se the y Jfe n o t b r i l l i a nt

gifted I c qard l e s s o f what

way

..

or in any

the public

th i n k 0 1 trlt?iT l The v a s t m ajority

the

Of

public v i e w s a s com pi Iter

9 C rl I U S G S are q U l :8 a v e rage
" s " I I ' I "
u p boa rds

that

can ;\ r-'; :':, o f a t the m o r h : ri L

de

flO/ some

who

IS

who

u n de rs ta n d s

anon t ri e

friend

o r re l a ti v e o f s o r:i rtn c y

t h e concepts

n o t o n l y the co m m a n d s

i n Jolved .

w h o thi 0 k s i t

w o u l d be a b l a s t to t u r n o ff C A M A o n a
few sw i t c h e s , o r d i s ru pt CO S MO S o pe ra

tio n s . A l l of t h i s potential dam age i s m ade

p o s s i b l e by t h e R B O C ' s t h e m s e l v e s ,
wh ich pro v i d e e x t re m e l y m i n i m a l s e c urity

that I S m o re o f a study I n fau l t y securi ty

tech n i q u e s and shoddy organization than
any k i n d o f o b stacle t o the potential hack
er.

th i e a l l i l d i bvi-i'd s " u se . And trle only rea

SCI: it's a pr::: b iem t o be g i n with i s because

trle ' ttlrealened' o rg a n i z atio n s o r ca m pa
n i l! s have ridiculously bad security.

Wh ile i t i s tr ue ttlii! 111 0re pe ople now

p e r so na l com pute r s than at a n y other
t i m e I n h i s t o ry , trw o ve ra l l effect o f t h i s

own

i n f l u x o f n e w Iackers i s n e g l i g i b l e . I n stead

of one

kid a n n o y i n g h i s l o c a l CO f r o m

i nfo rm ation he found o n some boa rd , there

a re 10 kids u s i n g the same i nform a t i o n
fro m the same board to hara s s t h e sam e

C O . I n s h o rt, t h e re i s a d e l u g e of ' i d i o t

W h i l e 'co m puting power" i s n o w w i th i n

reach o f a vast n u m be r of p e o pl e , a l m o st

s a v a n t s ' w h o a r e c a p a b l e o f d o i ng n o

m o re d a m age t h a n tra i n e d chi m p s .

a 1 l of that 'vast n u m be r' are i g n o ra n t as to

T h e B u l l et i n Board Systems

t h e i r s y s te m ' s p o t e n t i a l . In f a c t , m o st

B u l l e ti n board syste m s ( B BS's) po se a

n e v e r g e t be y o n d r u n n i n g the i r s p r e a d

possible threat for the s i m p l e reason that

w i t rl " 1 6 M B R A M " .

pote n t i a l l y

s h e e t o r d o i n g t a x e s o n t h a t wo nderful P C
sink

And if t h e y e v e r do
into the s o r d i d d e p t h s o f d e p r a v i t y

the m o r e h i g h l y s k i l l e d u s e rs w i l l p o s t

S u m m e r 1 988

dangero u s

inform a t i o n i n a

( continued on next pUf{c)

2 6 0 0 Magazill e

I'age 1 7

A READER 'S VIEW

place where the "idiot savants" can read it.

place is copyright i nfringem ent.

The better versed user's reason for post-

Specific Responses to
Some of Zap's Statements

i n g i t is ego g rati ficati o n . Regard less of

what he claims, the o n l y incenti ve he has
to post this i n formation is an ego boost.

one:

Le t's cover Zap's state m e n ts one by

He already knows t h a t t h e "idiot savants"

are going to do something stupid with the

n u m be rs, logons, and passwords are com -

..

" S u c h i nformation like d i a l - u p po rt

i nformation, at worst sim pl y m aking it val -

m o n i n fo r m at i o n ava i l ab l e to t h e m a i n

ue less, d t best flexing their m uscles and

hacker population." No shit. I t's also com

showing the i r target how vulnerable they

mon i n fo rm ation avai l able to anyone who

are to an outside attack,

calls up any of the carriers and reque sts it.

G rante d , if B B S's didn't e x i st, m uch of

the t rouble vari o u s ;>eo p i e and com panies

end result of credit card fraud , and have

now e x p e ri e nce wc uld v a n i s h along with

the i d iot savants". But the only thing the
boards real l y do i s provide a forum f o r t h e
"

intelligent USe r S to bask i n the adora

tion o f foo l s , T h e y are n o t s o m e great

The logons and passwords are usually the

nothing to do with the i ngenuity o f hacking
i nto a syste m .
.. Zap's e ntire spiel o n board security,

m o re

the "select few", and the security of hacke r

organizEd c r i m e w"ve o f the futu re ; they

a r e s i m ply u se d L y s e v e r a l t ho u sa n d

head and nowhere else. The only reason

m o s t pe o p l e never m ove i nto the se h a l -

bored kids, the g re 2 t m ajority of them trying to l ive o u t s o m e k i n d o f powe r tri p

l owed ranks is beca u se they have some

w h i l e thn re m a i n i n g m i n o rity congre gate

p o s s i b l e . The o n l y t h i n g s e parating y o u

to g e t h e r be c a u s e t h e y l i k e b e i n g s u r rounded by tho se they view a s thei r peers,

f r o m anything y o u w a n t t o acce s s i s igno

I n s u m m ary, board s are a social mediu rn - n o t t h e f o r e f ro n t o f s o m e we l l

and the reality o f how security works, a s

o pposed t o the ridicu l o u s fanta s i e s pre

o rchestrated , nationwide attack on loop-

sented by Zap .
Assu m i ng a sysop h a d no l ife outside

h o l e s i n " t h e s y ste m " . J u s t a bo u t a n y

i ssue of Soldier of FOi1une contain s all the

boards takes place for the m o st part i n h i s

how convi nced the m se lve s that t h i s i sn't

rance of how the sysops' m i nds functio n

o f his board , and he got paid by the h ou r

i nfor m ation you could possibly w an t about

to s i ft through all o f tho se records of h i s

w h e re t o o btai n b o o k s o n plastic e x p l o -

potential users, all he d acco m pl i s h wou l d

sive s , n e r v e g a s , special weapo n s , e lectro n i c device s , and anything else that has

be to weed o u t people who didn't know

been dreamed u p . Y o u hardly need a B B S

wanted acce ss a n d understood t h e basics

in o rd e r to have acce s s to that kind of

of how to falsify i nformati o n wou l d still gai n

knowledge. In fact n:ost of the i nformation

po sted o n t h e " d e a t h a n d d e structi o n "

e n tr y , a n d the e n d r e s u l t is a s e c u r i t y
breach . There is n o such thing as perfect

subs of boards is a word-for-word copy of

so m e arti c l e that o r i g i n a l l y a p p e a re d i n
one o f these boo k s . The only cri m e taking

Page 18

2 600 Magazine

'

how the syste m w o r ke d . An y o n e w h o

security. When anyone " b u i l d s a be tte r

m o u s e trap " , a few days late r an i nventive

person will "build a better m o u se " .

Summer 1988

OF THE ZAP AR TICLE

In any case, the security exam ples pre
sented by Zap do not exist on any private
or "elite" phreak or hacker B B S now i n
existence . If t h e sysop claims that is what
they do, it's sim ply meant to scare poten
tial users into submitting valid i nform ation
which the sysop doesn't bother to verify
beyond the telephone number.
... Disclaimers and Clauses: Whether
Zap's c o m m e nts o ri g i n ate from actual
ignorance or sim ply a desire to knowingly
m isinform , is u nknown to us .
A disclaimer, any disclaimer, will have
very little value in any kind of legal situa
tion. While the sysop m ight feel better if
"it's not my fault" and "for i nformation pur
poses only!" are splattered over every part
of his board, it isn't going to make any dif
f e r e n c e to a ny j u d g e i n a ny c o u r t '
D iscl a i m e rs are n o t l e g a l l y b i n d i n g . All
they do is take up space and lull sysops
into a false sense of security.
Thinking you're safe because you have
a good disclaim er translates out to "igno
rance is bliss" . If you haven't had any trou
ble with law enforcement agencies to date ,
it only means that they don't know about
your existence ( buried as you are amongst
1 ,000 other quasi -legal B B S ' s ) , or that
they know and don't care because you
aren't doing anything that they're worried
about.
... Tele-Trial : I can't believe this! Zap,
where ya been for the last three years ?
Tele-Trial was a ridiculous "electronic tri
bunal " started by King B l o tto as a joke.
For whatever reaso n , he started taking
himself seriously and for a few months in
1 9 85 "Tele -Trials" were being held, i n
which "el ectro n i c executio n" took pl ace

off Blottoland and b e i ng declared " u n

cool !" (The horror!)
It is impossible for anyone to enforce
any " r u l i ng " o ve r a n y o n e e l se in t h e
modem com munity. The boards are n o t all
i nterconnected and what one person , or
group of people, declares as "law" on one
system , or set of systems, is utterly mean
ingless to the hackers the next area code
over. And even to the people involved with
those specific systems, it only pe rtains to
them if they want to play the game . There
is nothing preve nting an "exiled" pe rso n
from picking up a new handle and starting
over.
Aside from the com p lete i m possibility
of enforcing such "rulings" over anyo ne
but the most brain-dam aged kids , all of
this is nothing more than a history lesson.

(continued on next page)

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CALLING ROOM OPERATORS

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BLUE BOX OPERATORS
COMPUTER HACKING INVADING , .:.
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(2 1 2) 22 745 1 9
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Ca l l

THIS AD APPEARED IN A NEW

YORK NEWSPAPER THIS
SPRIN G . THE HUNT IS ON!

and stupid kids cried about being thrown

Summer 1988

2600 Magazine

Page 19

RESPONDING TO THE
Tele-Trials have been over since the sum
mer of 1 985.
As for Richard Sandza, T ele-Trial still
existed at the tim e of the publishing of his
articles for Newsweek. The 'Tele-Trial' he
was put on was sim pl y a conference of
abusive kids who felt that he had give n
hackers u n fair treatm e nt . I n re ta l iation
they thre ate ned h i m : a C aptain Quieg
posted his credit report and numerous kids
ran up bills on his cred it cards , sending
assorted junk to his house.
Hackers cannot 'perform the destruc
tion' of anyone. All they can do is scare
the shit out of 'normal' people who are
shocked that a bunch of kids can get their
unlisted number, credi t cards, and various
other records, and abuse the m .
In a n y case, Sandza i s som e th i ng o f
an exception since he m anaged t o piss off
a large percentage of people who were in
a position to m ake l i fe hard for him i n
return. Most people w h o disagree with h i m
c a n write a com plaint t o Newsweek, b u t i f
you have t h e ability t o bring your displea
sure to his perso nal attention , in a way
that w i l l e n s u re he g i v e s n o tice to it,
wouldn't you do the same thing? After all,
i t is n 't Ne wsweek y o u 're m ad a t , it's
R ichard Sandza. Some of you probably
wouldn't, but that's one of the fringe bene
fits of being a hacker. I nstead of being
bound by 'the system's' rules and regula
tions, you can get around it and let your
conscience be your guide (if you happen
to have a conscience ) .
.. 'And rem e m ber, t h e hacker can be
the best prevention for computer security
sickness and that a reformed hacker can
m ake for the best data processing security
person: Another token stab at self-promo-

Page 20

2600 Magazine

lion by Zap.

.. 'The boards in general have been a

m ajor problem in the control of information
due to the use of the boards by what so m e
m ay cal l ' i n f o r m a t i o n j u n k i e s ' . " What's
wro n g with people who want to col lect
inform ation ? Are you suggesting that arbi
trary censorship wo uld be an i m p rove
ment?
.. 'One of the m ajor contributing fac
tors involving computer abuse is the non
education of the users in ethics: While it
m akes for a nice sweeping general ization,
this statement has little to do with reality.
Most "normal users' think no more of
copying a piece of software than they thi nk
of taping a copy of an album, or xeroxing a
page o u t of a copyrighted publ icati o n .
While a l l of these acts a re illegal, the re
are n ' t m a n y peo ple that actual l y care .
" Educating' peo ple is not going to eradi
cate these problems.
As far as the phreaks and hackers are
concerned, the state m e n t is even m o re
lud icrous. While a m inority undoubtedly
j u stify their actions to the m s e l ves a s
'curiosity' and thus set their consciences
to rest, the greater percentage know that
in the course of doing whatever it is that
they happen to be doing at the mom ent,
they are com mitting crimes. And they don't
care.
Morality and ethics are subjects that
cannot be 'taught' to anyone. Each indi
vidual has to make his or her personal
choices based u pon whatever tenets or
bel iefs they h a p p e n to e s p o u s e . V e ry
often people who function from a predom i
nantly logical perspective com e to the con
clusion that "right and wrong' are relative
to a given time and situation. As applied in

Summer 1988

CAPTAIN ZAP AR TICLE

o u r society they typica l l y de note values
that m ost of our p resent po pulation su b

hacker o r phreak's prim ary m otivati o n is

e i ther a real hunger for knowledge, o r ego

scribes to . Why should anyone do som e

gratification. I n neither case does m o n e

thing j ust because everyone else is d o i ng

it?

tary gain enter t h e picture. The pe o p l e you

Ethics will always be u p to the individu

rea l l y have to worry about are career cri m

inals. They aren't kids a n d they don't call

al, who will i n many cases co m e to the

boards. I f a hacker is present i n your sys

l o g i ca l c o n c l usion that he d oesn't care

tem , the n a cri m i nal could easily gain entry

what the rest o f so c i e t y c o n d ones or

acce pts , and i n stead o f b l i n d l y followi n g

to your syste m as wel l . I f a n yt hi n g , yo u

t h e i r dictu m s he w i l l c h o o s e to t h i n k f o r

should view it as a blessing that the hack

h i m se l f a n d pe rhaps arrive at conclusions

e r has brought your lack of security to you r

a tt ention

that don't coincide with what society hap

The previous paragraph s h o u l d n ' t be

pe n s to find acceptable at that particular

m i sco n s t r u e d as a m o r a l j u d g m ent o n
cri m i na l s . Persona l l y we couldn't care less

tim e .
.. Accessing government and m i l i tary
com pu te r s : Why it is that people com e to

h o w yo u m ake yo u r l i v ing as l o n g a s
you're good at what y o u do .

the co nclusion that governm e n t com puters

should be bastion s of security we couldn't
begin to g uess. Whe n yo u speak of the
gove r n ment and m il itary, we p re s u m e you
mean our govern m e n t and m i l i tary ; you

k n o w , the o n e r u n by i n c o m pete n t s ,
bureauc rats , and other pape r pushers that \
excel at nothing e xcept wasting time and
m oney.
For so m e o n e who c a u ti o ns o t h e rs
agai nst m aking 'rash statem ents', Captain
Zap has apparently written an entire article
fil led with statements that neatly i gnore his
own dictu m .
Lastly, we'd l i ke t o bring u p one rele
vant fact t h a t m ost ' se c u r i ty a n a l ysts'
m anage to ignore: hackers and phreaks
(fo r the m ost part) are not c ri m i nals. At
least that isn't the way they view the m
selves. W h i l e nobody lays awake nig hts
worry i n g about the fact t h a t today he's
cost a f e w p h o ne c o m pa n i e s so m e
m o n e y , a n d p e r h a p s w a s t e d syst e m
resources o n u n-authorized applications, a

A rtwork by J.R. " B o b " Dobbs

Red Box article on p age 1 3

Summer 1988

2600 Magazine

Page 21

HOW T O B UILD

(continuedfrom page 13)

capaci tors from pins 5 and 9 o f

" Q u a r t e r " . A d j u s t t h e 5 0 k pot

IC2.

labelled "Quarter" until exactly 5

Power

up

the

circui t .

Measuring the output from pin 5

very quick beeps are heard for

of IC2 with the frequency counter,

each button press. Don't worry if

adjust the 20k pot between pins 1

the qua rter beeps sound shorter

and 6 for an ou tput of 1 700 hz.

and faster than the nickel and

Now adjust the 20k pot between

dime ones. They should be.

pins 8 and 13 for an output of 2200

Conclusion

hz from pin 9 of IC2. Remove the

If all went well to this point,

temporary jumper and re-attach

your red box should be completely

the capacitors to pins 5 and 9 .

aligned and functional. A final test

(Note : if no frequency counter i s

should now be conducted from a

a v a i l ab l e , t h e o u tp u t s c a n b e

payphone using the D ATL ( d i a l

adjusted b y e a r o n e a t a time b y

access test line) coin test. Dial

zero-beating the output tone with

09591 230 and follow the compu ter

a computer generated tone o f

instructions using the red box a t

known precision .)

the proper prompts. The compu ter

Next, temporarily d i sconnect

should correctly identi fy all coins

the wire between pins 5 and 1 0 of

"simulated" and flag any anoma

IC1 . Set coin selector switch in the

lies. With a li ttle di scretion, your

" N " (nickel ) p o s i t i o n . With the

red box should bring you many

oscilloscope measuring the output

years of use. Remember, there's no

from pin 9 of IC1 , adjust the 50k

such thing as space change!

pot between pins 12 and 13 of ICl

Parts List for Red B ox

for output pulses of 60 millisecond

Semiconductors

d u ra t i o n . R e c o n n e c t the w i r e

(2) 556 Dual Timer

between pins 5 and 10. (Note: If no

( 1 ) 741 Op Amp

scope is available, adjust the pulse

( 1 ) IN9 1 4 Switching Diode

rate by ear u sing computer gener

Resistors

ated tones for comparison.)

(6) 1 0k

The remaining adjustments are

( 1 ) 4 .7k

(2) l OOk
(4) 50k PC Mount Potentiometer

made by ear.
Leave the selector swi tch in the

(2) 50k Multi-Turn Potentiometer

"N" position. Adjust the 50k pot

Capacitors

labelled "Dime" for a quick double

( 1 0) 0.01 uF

beep each time the pushbutton is

(2) 1 0.0 uF Electrolytic

pressed.

Miscellaneous

F i n a l l y , s e t the s e l e c t o r to

Page 22

2 600 Magazine

( 1 ) 1 .0 uF

(2) 14 Pin Dip Socket

Summer 1988

A RED BOX
(1) 8 Pin Dip Socket
(1) 3-position Rotary Switch
( 1 ) M omentary Push - B utton
Switch (normally open)

0 ) Speaker or Telephone Earpiece

(1) SPST Toggle Switch

9V Battery Clip

Circuit Board
Box
Mounting Hardware

S ummer 1988

').o,.F

..... ,

2600 Magazine

Page 23

TH ES E ARE
Dear

Reactions to Zap
Dear

2600:

After reading Captain Zap 's

article in your last issue I'm left
with the feeling that it was not
m e ant to inform . Rat h e r it
seems to me th at Zap wants to
scare legitimate users and peo
ple in charge of security at var

2600:

Is Captain Zap for real? Is

this the same Captain Zap who
used to go by the name of Ian
M u rphy and is consulting on
computer security? U's a pretty
far- fetch e d picture of an evil
underground conspiracy. All of
the "elite" underground BBS's I
was on (and I was on several of
the exact same ones Captain

ious comp anies into believing

Zap was on) had no real check

in the existence of an incredi

b ly o r g a n iz e d a n d c om p l ex

skipped t h e c allb ack to verify

organization that decides upon

wh o attacks what and makes
up l aws and regulations . I n
short, it looks to m e like Zap

d e s p e r a t e ly wants p e op le t o
believe that the big bad h ack
ers are out there waiting to get

u p s on i d e ntity . M o st e v e n
and a famous name could get
you on.
The FBI has some of the best
hacking info available and I'm
su re they would tra d e a few
trapped MCI codes and traced
computer passwords to get on

them (especially if they happen

any system.

i n w h i c h c a s e t h e h ac ke r s

article is: "Granted they did not

to be Fortune 500 companies,

really have i t i n for them) , and

only Captain Zap and his secu
rity company c an protect you
from u s , so by G o d ya b etter
h and h im s o m e c a s h and a
long term contract, or we'll eat
you alive!
Either t h a t or Zap is j u st

hopelessly out of it . In either

case I wouldn't put my security

The biggest bull of the whole

move the b ird [ satellit e ] , but
they d i d g a in a c c e s s t o the
rotation c ontrol for the satel
lite . " Pure bull. Please see the
article I wrote for you on page

2 -52 (August '85) about moving

sat ellit e s . Tells exactly what
was misu ndersto o d . I know,
because I posted the "satellite
routing codes" .
The Shadow

into his hands.

Murdering Thug
and The BOY!
Circle of Deneb/
Digital Gang

Page U

2600 Magazine

Dear

2600:

In th e S p ring 1 9 8 8 issu e ,

2 6 0 0 p r e s e n t e d a n art i c l e

c a l l e d "Th e H a c ke r Thre a t "

Summer 1988

TH E

L E TT E R S

written by Captain Zap . While I

don't agree with the article . I 'm
glad you published it because I
like to see d iffere nt opinions
wh ic h p ro v o k e d i s c u s s i o n .
Aft e r r e a d ing t h e a r t i c l e I
decided to do a little research
on him.
C a p t a in Zap . w h o s e t r u e
name i s Ian M urphy. i s now a
computer sec urity consultant .
This was not always tru e. Until
the time of his arrest. he was a
hack (Taxi Driver) by trade and
a hacker by hobby. In 1 984 he
was convicted of credit card
fra u d . N o w . as a r e fo rm e d
h acker. h e a t temp ts t o h e l p
companies free t h e i r systems
from hackers. Recently. he has
b e e n active on m a ny B B S ' s .
inclu ding those sponsored by
2600. On Central Office BBS
he claimed that a rival comput
e r s e c u rity c o n s u lta nt from
Detroit had been charged with
criminal sexu al conduct and
harassment . H e then threat
ened to sue that same consul
tant for alleg e d s l a n d e r . He
also vigorously attacked The
T e l e c om
S e c u rity
Group
(TTSGl . a respected Newburgh
(NY) based consulting firm. for
having advertised in 2600 and
for being closely involved with
c o m p u t e r h a c k e r s . TTS G is
considering legal action against
Murphy.
Murphy has been profiled by

such periodicals as The Wal l

Street Joumal. and USA Today.
I n t h e s e int e rviews h e h a s
admitted to such acts as: mon
itoring his ex-wife's telephone
with an illegal wiretap. break
ing and entering a client corpo
ration's facilities. and refUSing
to turn in information abo u t
alleged criminals .
I h ope this is of interest.
Yevgeny Zamyatin

For a rep ly to las t issue's

C ap tain Zap article. turn to
page 1 6.

Gripes and
Feedback
2600:
Hi. I am one of your numer
ous subscribers and interested
re aders who has a few gripes
with the Spring 1 988 issue of
2600.
Altho ugh I don't mind the
new format and appreciate its
l arg e r size I t h ink it c o u l d
stand somewhat better editing.
"Th e Th r e a t of C om p u t e r
H a c k e rs . " O n e o r t w o n i c e
anecdotes but the rest should
h av e g o n e i n t o B y t e o r
C o mp u t e ! I m e a n y o u c a n
assume t h at y o u h ave more
enlightened r e a ders on that
s u bj e c t that d o n ' t n e e d a
" H C K- 1 0 0 B B S & Sys t e m s
Intro" .
Dear

(continued on next page)

S ummer 1988

2600 Magazine

Page 25

> L.J I

__

"ROLM Phone System. " You

could h ave cut this to one or
two pages. About 50 percent of
the article is fluff, like the com
plaints t h at p e ople can't use
t h e n e w p h o n e with t h o s e
weird b uttons . Times ch ange
faster than humans and some
of t h e complaints are hardly
worthy of the reader's time . So
w h a t if t h e info n u mb e r
changes from 246-3636 t o 632 6830?
Given a larger magazine this
wouldn't be so bad , but 2600 is
relatively small and so I'd pre
fer more and shorter articles (if
they exist) .
LIKE D :
I
What
OK.
"Monitoring TIRO. " Although I
am no p h reak I love to read
s t u ff like t h a t j u st t o k e e p
informed .
''VM/ CMS.'' Although I hope
I will never be on a system like
t h at it might come in h andy
sometime .
'Weathertrak. " Not my real
interest, but interesting never
theless.
"From the 2600 Files." Fun
and informative.
"Happenings" and "Letters" .
These are my favorites.
I hope you don't mind a little
feedback from a reader.
Best of luck to you and your
mag.
Natuerlich !

Page 26

2600 Magazine

We never mind getting com

ments and criticism. It shows
that our subscribers are read
ing the magazine. What more
could we askJor?
We presented Captain Zap's
article ("Threa t oj Comp u ter
Hackers") not as a revelation
but as an example oj what is
being said by some. We did
this with the intention oj open
ing up a dialogue whiCh, judg
ing Jrom the response in this
issue and on the boards, is
precisely what happened.
The ROIM article was meant
to illustrate more than the sim
ple inconvenience oj having to
adjus t to some thing new. We
w ere attemp ting to point o u t
how it's becoming increasingly
common Jor the ins tallers oj
such systems to blatantly dis
regard the needs oj the users
and just assume everyone will
fIgure it out in the end. Being
denied the freedom to select an
easy- to-remember phone num
ber seemed particularly ironic,
considering user flexibility was
one oj the "advantages" oj this
new phone system.
By the way, another pag e
that we got lots oj comment on
was the reprint oj our six-cent
R CI p h o n e b i l l t h a t ' s b e e n
s ho w ing u p Ja i t hJu l ly here
every month Jor nearly t w o
years. Well, g uess w hat? RCI
mus t be reading these pages

Summer 1988

L E E I S
because we suddenly s topped
g e t t ing t h e m . (Ma y b e w e
s hould reprin t our $200 Mel
bill and hope that goes away!)

Useful

Trick

(where x is any digit) will tell

you the number you're calling
from.
H ave fun and keep up the
good work.
Your little tnck for getting an

unrestricted dial tone is proba

2600:
J u s t a n o t e fr o m a s u b b l y the s ing le m o s t common
SCriber. I love 2600. It gives a t e c hn i q u e t h a t exis t s . A n d
w hat's s o remarkable about it
lot of food for thought.
A contribution: On the AT&T is t h a t so many c o mp a n ie s
s e e m c o mp l e t e l y u n a b l e o r
Horizon PBX (lately disc ontin
ued) there is a "toll-restriction" even unwilling t o put a s top to
it! We urge our readers to try
feature . Ports can be connected
this
on any sys tem that offers
to a special card that enforces
any
kind
of dialing restrictions.
toll-restriction: L e . , you can't
Please
le
t
us know w ha t you
dial 1+ for long distanc e . The
software knows about this too . fmd.
We app rec i a t e t h e A NI
If you try to dial 1 + , you 'll get a
fast busy tone to let you know (A u t o m a t ic N u m b e r Ide n t ij
i t ' s fo rb i d d e n . H owev e r , t h e cation) information. If readers
hardware i s expensive to modi from other parts of the country
fy and it's the software that know what their ANI numbers
gives the busy tone , so many are, please let us know. (In the
companies just let the software New York metro area, it's 958.)
do the toll-restriction and don't
bother buying the special hard
ware .
Mistake . If you are on such a
system and get the fast busy,
Dear 2600:
j ust hang on the line for about
Enclosed is another example
seconds .
P r e st o !
30-45
of how Ma Bell loves screwing
Unrestri c t e d dial t o ne . Most
the telecommunicating public .
people give up when they hear
This was clipped from "On Line
the fast busy.
Today" , the Compuserve maga
Also, here in Atlanta the dig
zine . On one page is a letter in
it a l exc h a n g e s
(Northern
which the writer thanks anoth
Telecom D M S - l OO 's) are pro
er correspondent for advice on
grammed so that 940-xxxxxxx
tem p o rarily s u s p e nding c a l l
Dear

"Deluxe" Call
Waiting

(continued o n page 39)

Summer 1988

2600 Magazine

Page 2 7

(continued from page 7)

P ro t e c t i o n

I guess the programmer involved was

too cowardly to take me up on my offer
and prefers to hurt people not capable of
fighting back. I should have known that, I
suppose , but I don't normally think of peo
ple who attack i nnocents. Normally, I think
of people to respect, not people to pity,
certainly not people who m ust cause such
damage in order to "get ofr.
They are be low conte m pt, o bviously,
and can do l ittle to help them selves out of
the m ire they l ive in.
Sti l l , a worm i s a worm .
About FLUSHOT
A Brief H istory
The o rigi nal incarnation of F L U S HOT
was a quick hack done i n my s pare time. It
had a couple of bugs in i t which caused it
to trigger when it shouldn't, and a few con
ditions which I had to fix . A strangeness in
how CO M MA N D .COM processed certain
conditions when I " fa i l e d " an o pe rati o n
caused people to lose more data than they
had intended -- certainly not my i ntent!

"No matter what

software protection
you use, somebody
will find a way
around it one day. "
FLUSHOT was modified and became
FLUS HOT2. I t included some additional
protections, protecting som e other i mpor
tant syste m files, and protecti ng agai n st
direct disk writes which can be u sed to cir
cumvent FLUS HOT's protection m echa-

Page 28

2600 Magazine

F ro m

nisms.
Additionally, FLUSHOT2 forced an exit
of the program currently running instead of
a fail condition when you indicated that an
operation should not be carried out.
F L U S HOT2 was also now d istributed
i n the po pular archive format ( have yo u
re m e m b e re d to s e n d yo u r s h a reware
check i n to Phil Katz for his efforts? You
really should. It ain't that m uch money ! ) .
N e x t c a m e F L U S HOT3 . A b u g w a s
fixed which could h a v e c a u s e d c e rtai n
weird things when you denied direct disk
1/0 to certain portions of DOS 3.x.
The e n h ance m e nt s to F L U S HOT3
included t h e a b i l i ty t o e nte r a 'G' when
F L U S HOT was triggered . This a l l owed
FLU SHOT to become inactive until an exit
was called by the foreground ta s k . So ,
when you u sed som e trustworthy program
which did direct disk 1/0, you wouldn't be
pestered with con stant triggering after you
e nte r the 'G'. P ri marily this was a quick
hack to allow programs such as the FOR
MAT pro g ram to run without F L U S H OT
being triggered each ti me it tried to do any
work it was suppo sed to .
Additionally, a CMOS RAM check was
i nstalled. If a foreground program attem pt
ed to change CMOS m e m ory, you'd be
advised.
What the heck is CMOS m e mory, you
m i ght be aski n g . Good questio n . In AT
class and better m achines, certain i m por
tant parameters (such as the type of hard
disk you're using, or how m uch mem ory
there is in your machine) are stored up i n
s p e c i a l n o n - v o l ati l e m e m o r y , c a l l e d
CMOS.
If this gets changed, you m ight have a
pro b l e m when you re boot. FL U S HOT3

Summer 1988

C o m p u t e r

U iru s e s

sends at least one little slimebucket back

to the d rawing b o a rd , because it wi l l
restore the CMOS and prevent this hassle
from occurring .
FLUSHOT + Features
and Enhancements
This rel ease of F L U S HOT has a new
nam e : FLUSHOT+. Because FLUS HOT4
was a Trojan, I opted to change the nam e .
Besides, FLUS HOT + i s t h e result of som e
real effort on m y part, i nstead of be i n g a
part-ti m e q u ick hack. I h o p e the e ffo rt
shows.
F L U S H OT is now table drive n . That
ta b l e is in a f i l e w h i c h I c a l l
FLUSHOTDAT. It exists in the root direc
tory on your C : drive. However, I'll advise
you later on how to change its location so
that a worm can't create a Trojan to modi
fy that file.
This file now al lows you to write and/or
read protect entire classes o f program s.
This m eans that you can write protect from
dam age all of your * .COM , * . E X E , * .BAT,
and *.SYS files. You can read protect all of
your *. BAT files so that a nasty program
cannot even d e te r m i n e what name you
used for FLUSHOT + when you invoked it !
Additionally, you can now autom atically
check p rograms when yo u first invoke
F L U S H O T + to d e te r m i n e i f t h e y ' v e
changed since y o u last looked a t them .
Called checksu m m in g , it allows yo u to
know imm ediately if one of the protected
programs has been changed when you're
not looking. Additionally, this checksum
m ing can even take place each time you
load the program for execution.
Also , FLUS HOT + will advise you when
any program "goes TSR". TSR stands for
"Term inate and Stay Reside nt" , allowing

po p-ups and other useful programs to be

created. A worm could create a program
w h i c h l e av e s a b i t of s l i m e be h i n d .
Programs l i ke Borland's S i d e K ick pro
gram , a wonderful program and certainly
not a Trojan or virus, is probably the best
known TSR. FLUSHOT + wi l l advise you if
any program attem pts to go TSR which
yo u haven't a l ready registered i n your
FLU SHOT. DAT file.
Finally, FLUSHOT + will also now pop
u p a l ittle window in the m iddle o f yo ur
screen when it gets triggered. It also will
more fu l l y explain why it was triggered .
T h e p o p - u p w i n d o w m e ans t h a t y o u r
scre e n w o n ' t g e t screw e d u p beyo n d
reco g n i tion -- u n l ess you 're i n graph ics
m ode when it pops up. So rry, 'dems the
breaks !
Reg isteri ng FLUSHOT +
F L U S H O T + is n o t a free progra m .
You're encouraged t o use it, to distribute it
to your friends and co-workers. If you end
up not using it for so m e reason , let me
know why and I ' l l see if I can do some
thing about it in the next release .
But, the right to use FLUSHOT + is con
tingent upon yo u paying fo r the right to
use it. I ask for ten dol lars as a registration
fe e . T h is e n titles y o u to g e t the n e x t
u p d ate s h i p p e d w h e n avai l a b l e . A n d
allows you to pay me, in part, for m y labor
in creating the entire FLUS HOT series. I
don't expect to get my normal consulting
rate or to get a return equal to that of other
programs which I've developed and se ll
through more traditional channels. That's
n o t m y i n t e n t , or I w o u l d have m ad e
F L U S HOT + a com m e rcial program and
you'd be paying lots m ore money for it.
So m e people are u nco m fortable with

Summer 1988

(continued on next page)

2600 Magazine
Page 29

R
the shareware concept, or believe that
there ain't no such thing as Trojan or virus
programs, and that a person who profits
from the distribution of a program such as
FLUSHOT m ust be i n it for the money.
I 've created an alternative for these
folks. I'll cal l it "charityware" (first called
that, to m y knowledge, by Roedy G reenJ.
You can also reg i ster F L U S HOT + by
sending me a check for $10 m ade out to
your favorite charity. Be sure to include a
stamped and addressed envelope . I'll for
ward the monies o nto them and register
you ful ly.
Of course , if you wish, you can send
me a check for more than $10. I'll cash it
gladly ( I 'm no foo/ ! ) .
Site Licensing of FLUSH OT +
So, you run the com puter department
o f a big corporation, you got a copy of
FLUSHOT + , decided it was wonderful and
that it did everything you wanted and sent
in your ten bucks. Then you distributed it
to your 1000 users.
Not what i s i ntended by the shareware
sch e m e . Each s i t e u s i n g F L U S HOT +
should be registered. That's ten bucks a
site, me bucko ! Again, make the check out
to charity if you're uncomfortable with the
idea of a program mer actually deriving an
income from their work.
H oweve r , if you've real ly g o t 1000
com puters, you should give me a call . As
m uch as I'd like to get $10 for each site,
that wouldn' be fair to you . So, quantity
discounts are available .
T h e FLUSH OT.DAT fi le
FLUSHOT + is table-driven by the con
tents o f the FLUS HOT. OAT file. This file
normally exists in the root directory of your
C: drive ( C :\FLUSHOT.DAT).

Page 30

2600 Magazine

Flu

Shot

F o r

A little later in this article you'll see how

to disguise the data file name, making life
tougher for the worm s out there . But for
the purpose of this article, we 'll assume
that the file is called C :\FLUSHOT. DAT.
The FLUSHOT + program will read this
data file exactly once . It reads the data
from the data file into memory and over
write s the n a m e of the data file in so
doing. A little extra protection in hiding the
name of the file.
This data file contai n s a n u m be r of
l i ne s o f text. Each l i ne of text is of the
form :
(Command)=(fi lenam e)(options)
Com mand can be any one of the fol lowing characters:
P - Write Protect the file named.
R - Read Protect the file named .
E - Exclude the file named from match
i ng P or R lines.
T - The named file is a legitimate TSR.
C - Perform checksum operations on
the file named.
The filename can be an ambiguous file
if you wish for all com m ands except the 'T'
and 'C' com mands. This means that:
C :\level l \* .COM
wil l specify all COM files on your C :
drive i n the level l directory ( o r its sub
directories). Specifying :
C :\level 1 \*\*. EXE
would specify all EXE files in subdi rec
tories under the C :\leve l l di rectory, but
would not include that directory itself.
You can also use the '?' operator to
specify ambiguous characters as in:
? :\usr\bin\? .COM
which would be used to specify files on
any drive in the \usr\bin directory on that
drive . The files would have to be single let-

Summer 1988

P e rs o n a l

C o m p u t e r s

ter filename s with the extension of 'CO M ' .

Am bi g u o u s file nam e s are not al lowed

Y o u c o u l d exclude F L U S HOT + fro m

be i n g t riggered by including a l i ne such a s :

Protecting files from Write Access

U se the ' P = ' o ption to protect files from
write acce s s . To disallow writes to any of
your C O M , E X E , S Y S , and B A T f i l e s ,
specify l ines o f the form :

O f c o u rse , you m i gh t have deve l o p

for the 'T' and 'C' opti o n s .

E = C :\devel o p\' .-

P = ' . CO M
P='.EXE

ment work on m a n y di sks u n d e r a directo

r y of t h a t n am e . If y o u d o , yo u m i g h t
i nclude a l ine which looks l i ke :
E = ? :\develop\

' '

or
E = '\develop'
Checksumming fi les

P = ' . SYS
P = ' . BAT

T h i s l i n e is a l i ttle m ore co m p l i cated

which protects these f i l e s on any disk,

i n any directory.
Protecting f i l es from Read Access

S i m i larly, you can u se the ' R ' com mand

t h a n o t h e r s a n d i n vo l v e s s o m e s e t u p
work. It's worth i t , thoug h !
A c h e c k s u m i s a m e th o d u s e d t o
reduce a f i l e ' s validity i nto a s i n g l e n u m

to protect f i l e s from bei ng read by a pro

be r . A d d i ng u p the va l u e s of t h e b y t e s

gram ( i nc l u d i n g t h e a b i l i t y t o ' T Y P E ' a

which m ake up t h e fi le would be a Si m pl e

file ! ) . To preven t read access to a l l of your

BAT files, use a line s u c h a s :
R = ' . BAT

c h e c k s u m m e thod . Do i n g m ore com pl e x

m a t h e m a t i c s a l l o w s f o r m o re a n d m o re

C o m b i n ati o n s of R a n d P l i n e s a r e

challe nge them to

upload a virus or
other Trojan horse to
my BBS tha t I can 't
disarm. "
"1

al lowe d , so the com bi nati o n of the above

l ines would prevent read o r wri te acce ss to
a l l batch fi l e s .

tes t .

I f you u se a l ie o n the form :

C = C :\COM MAND.COM[12345)

then when F L U S HOT + first loads i t w i l l

check the val i d i ty o f the fi l e a g a i n s t t h e
n u m b e r i n t h e s q u are b r a c ke t s . I f t h e
c h e c k s u m calculated d o e s not m atch the
n u m be r prese nted , you ' l l be advised with
a triggering of FLUSHOT, whi ch presents
the co rrect checksum .
W h e n yo u f i r s t

set

up

your

F L U S H OT. DAT fi l e , u se a d u m m y n u m be r
s u c h as 123 4 5 f o r each of t h e f i l e s you
'

'

w i s h to checksum . T he n , whe n yo u r u n

Ex c l u d i n g f i l e s

Program m e r s i n pa rt i c u l a r should find

u sa g e for the 'E' co m m an d . This a l lows
you to e x c l ude match i n g filenames fro m
o t h e r m a tch o pe r a ti o n s . A s s u m e y o u ' re
d o i n g develo p m e n t work in the C :\deve l o p
d i rectory .

c h e c k i n g i nform atio n to be incl uded i n a

F L U S H O T , you s h o u l d copy d o w n t h e
"erro ne o u s " checksu m pre se nted . The n ,
e d i t t h e F L U S HOT. D AT f i l e a n d repl ace
the d u m m y number with the actual check
sum value you had copied down. Voi l a ! If
even one b yte i n the file i s changed, you'll

Summer / 988

(continued on next page)

2600 Magazine
Page 3 /

t h e

Cont r o l l i n g
b e a d vi s e d t h e n e x t t i m e y o u r u n

FLU SHOT+.
B u t wai t ! There's more !
When a 'checks u m m ed" f i l e i s loaded
by M S - DO S , i t wi il, by default, be check
sum med agai n . So, i f you had a l i ne such
as:
C = C :\usr\bi nIW S. COM [ 1 2345 ]
the v e n e r a b l e old WordStar pr o g ra m

( sti ll my :ditor of noice i) wouid be check

sum med e ach time you wellt II) ed!l a fiie

O f c o u r s e , you m i 9 h t not want the
o '/ erlleao 0 1 tliat cecksLJm m i ng to tak .'
P ! C L 8 e :l c r li m e you l o a d a p ' o g r a rc
n, G re !(y :; , a lew swi tche s have bee n
aj(:'d. 1 he sWl tctes a r c placed i m rneo:
(; t r e r the T in : Ie cne surn line ,
7.C :\usr\t:Jin\W:.i. GOMj i ;345)( ;'''' itch)
i ,E) ',8 sWi tche s are :

JL WI,! only

chtcksum tile

tlll e s . O n l y one dlg:t aliowe a ,

"Bt:ncl lD. B B S
l\mt:terdam
M.cc l ub

ROT.Cnhurg

Arneu:foot
Elndh(lVen
l..e;ckn
Sittard
Amhen
Kampen

rv. J lbn Du.h

8 0 M 13 63 (3:1 1)
20 1 '-: 1 <; 1
1 8 19 1 8 1"
11 75 54 4';

40 48 1 7 9 2
71 12 \ 1 25
47 5 5 20 4 1
8 5 23 3 3 77
5 2 02 24 3 8 0
50 1 4 \ 1 4 5
22 90 34 04 6
54 90 62 54 2
1 1 80 3 4 33 6
77 82 2 5 22
79 5 1 04 2 5 (3(12)
15 21 1 8 1 1
7 0 29 5 0 8 8
:t t 23 23 32
' 2 1 2 67 8 3
1 0 48 14 2 6
' 8 20 22 3 1 4
'9 1 0 2 1 00 0
"4 42 3 8 60 (3 )
;,2 86 1 4 2 1 (3)
20 98 25 02 (3 }
: 2 40 38 86 6

Gromngen

Boom
Almdo

MICldd burg

Venlo

Zoctermoer
Apel doom

Den Hug
I lclJlC1"'
Alkmm
Rotten.la.m
Gouda
Emmcn

CPiM gg
Ill M PC gg
MSX gg
Sha'1'!MZ.gg
CP/M

SWBoo. 7 0 69 40 8 1

P2000 gg
Olivetti gg
Apple gg

NOS

Hobby Scoop

Fido Genrd

Fldo John
Fldo S<lnt.ech

Page 32

file o n l y ' n '

1 0 47 05 7 3 2
79 5 1 75 7 5
1 5 62 24 2 1 (3 )
] 5 45 39 5 (3)
47 84 23 0 1 (3)
4 0 53 1 4 5 ] (l )
34 89 8 1 9

26{)O Magazinf

- : o n l y checksum t h i s f i l e when
F L U S H O T + f i r s l l o ad s . ' , 1' a n d ' - ' a re
equivalent.
+: only checksum t h i s file w h e n it i s
l o a de d and execute d , n o t w he n
F L USHOT + first loads.
T h e refore , if you Wished to only check
you r WS .COM file when yo u first l o a d e d
the F L U S H OT+ program , you'd specify a
l ine a s :

2345] , 1

C=C :\l. ; s, ' blrwi<iS

O!

C=C :\ucr\hi r,' ws c0m l l

; f '/o u

Vv

" 13m callerj

\'V a s

S:-lP(j

:.::: fc k s u m

' M YPRC(

E XE '

your

o ro

u,e(j,
C C \pati!'.,vP HnG ': X F. .
Reg istering a TSR program
Any unregi stered ! SF< prc'gram 'NiliCh
i s run after FLLJ S HO T + WI!! cause a tngger
when they 'go 1 S Ft . You ca[l register a
pro g ra m so no trigger g o e s off by specify
i ng II in a l ine such a s :
T =C \usr\bin\lsr s\sk.com
which will k e e p FLUSHm ... trom com

plai n i n g about sk.com . Make sure t o take

a look at the . T' optio n ,

'

specified

i n the

next section.
Protecting the FLUSHOT , D AT file
Obvi0 usly, the weak l i n k in the chain of
the protecti o n w h i c h F L U S H OT + o ffe r s
y o u i s the FLUS HOT . DAT file.
You would think that you'd want to pro
tect the F L U S H O T . DAT file tram reads

a nd writes a s specified above . However

this, too , leaves a gapping security h ol e
m e m o ry could be searched for i t , and i t
could be l ocated that way. A better alter
native exists. I n the d i stri bution p a c k a g e

for F L U S HOT + e x i sts a program cal l e d

F L U PO K f= . CO M . This program al lows y o u

S u mmer 1 988

Epidemic
to specify the new name you wish to call
the FLUSHOT. DAT file. Simply type :
FLU POK E (flushot name)
where (flushot name) represe nts the
f u l l path f i l e n a m e o f yo u r c o p y of
FLU SHOT+.
You'll be prom pted for the name of the
F L U S H O T . D AT f i l e . E n t e r the n a m e
you've selected (re m e m be r t o specify the
d i s k and d i rectory as part of the nam e ) .
Voilal Nothing could be easier.
Protection Recommendations
He re's a sam ple F L U S HOT. DAT f i l e,
basica l l y the same o n e i ncluded i n the
archive . Your actual checksums will differ,
and you may want to m odify what fi les and
directories are protected. Obviously, your
exact needs are diffe re nt than m ine , so
consider this a generic F L U S HOT.DAT :
P = * . bat
P=*.sys
P=*.exe
P=*.co m
R = *AUTO E X EC .BAT
R= *CON FIG .SYS
E = ?\dev\*
C=C:\COMMAND.COM(1 2345)
C=C:\l B M B IO.COM(1 2345)
C=C:\l B MDOS .COM(1 2345)Running FLUSHOT +
For extra protection , after you've run
F L U P O K E , y o u s h o u l d rena m e the
FLU SHOT + program t o something unique
and meaningful to you , but not a worm .
Assum ing you didn't rename it, howev
er, you co uld invoke the program sim ply
by typing :
FSP
when at the pro m pt. That's all there is
to it. When you're satisfied, you can add it
to you r AUTO E X E C . BAT file, after all of

your trusted programs have run .

B u t there are some options you should
know about:
C hecking CMOS How often?
The C MOS, as described earlier in this
article, is a spot where i n a worm can just
make thi ngs a bit m i serable for you when
you n e x t boot y o u r syste m . Howeve r ,
FLUSHOT + al lows y o u t o protect the con
tents of your CMOS agai nst such a worm .
CMOS only exists on AT class and bet
ter m achines l ! !
You m u st specify the '-C' option when
you i nvo ke the F L U S H O T + progra m in
o rder to have yo ur CMOS safeguarded.
There is a check done whenever ooS is
accessed to determine if the CMOS has
c h a n g e d . This c a u se s a s l i g h t pe rfo r
m a nce penalty. However, this only hap
pens once every 1 28 oo S accesses. You
can modify this ratio, to more or less, by
specifying a number after the '- C ' :
FSP -C 1 0
will check CMOS every ten accesses.
Intercepting Direct Disk Writes
Through I NT1 3
The default operation of FLUS HOT + is
to intercept and examine every cal l to the
direct disk routines. You can disable this
by including the '-F' switch on your com
mand line :
FSP -F
This is not reco m m ended, but exists
primarily for developers who can't use the
constant triggering o ne o f their programs
may cause .
What about INT26?
S im ilarl y, the same exists for the direct
writes which normally are only made by
DOS through interrupt 26. Again, I do not
recom mend you disable the checking, but

Summer 1988

(continued on next page)

Page 33

2600 Magazine

U irus and Troj an

if you desire to do so , use the '-D' switch.
Turning off the header messag e
If you've no desire to see the rather
lengthy welco m e message which is dis
played when you fi rst use F L U S HOT t ,
use the '-h' switch.
Allowing Trusted TSR's to Work
Normally, you'd load all of your trusted
TSR's before FLUSHOT + is l oaded from
w i t h i n yo u r A U TO E X E C . B AT f i l e .
However, you m ight want to use SideKick
once i n a while , removing it from memory
as you d e s i re . T h is co u l d cause so m e
pro blems, since SideKick, and programs
l i ke it, take over ce rtai n i n te rru pts , and
F L U S H OT t co u l d get c o n f u s e d a b o u t
whethe r t h i s is a vali d c a l l o r a cal l that
s h o u l d n ' t be
a l l o we d .
N o rm a l l y,
F L U S HO T t wi l l trigger on these calis,
which is safer, but can be annoying. I f you
use the special '-T' switch upon prog ram
i nvocation, then calls which trusted TSR's
(those specified with the 'T command in
your F L U S H O T . DAT fi l e ) m ak e w i l l be
a l l owed . U nd e rsta n d , p l e a s e , that this
basica l l y means that cal l s m ade b y a
Trojan while a trusted TSR is loaded m ay
not be caught. Please , use this switch with
caution !
Disabling FLUSHOT +
=

'

There may be times when you're about

to do some work which you know wil l trig
ger FLUSHOT t. And you m ight not want
to be bothered with all o f the triggering,
the pop-up windows, and your need to
respond to each trigger. If you look i n the
upper right hand corner of your screen ,
you'll s e e a 't' sign . This indicates that

FLUSHOT t i s m onitoring and attem pting

to protect your system . Depress the ALT
key three times. Notice that the 't' sign'

Page 34

2 600 Magazine

turned into a '-'? Well, FLUS HOT t is now

disabled, and will not trigger on any event.
If you de pre ss the AL T key three m o re
' '
tim es, you'll see the '-' tum back into a t
- each time you depress the AL T key three
t i m e s , F L U S HOT t w i l l toggle betwee n
being enabled and disabled.
Disabling FLUSHOT + Toggle Display
Alas, there a re g raphics appl ications

"A ll of the protectio n I

had wo uld have been
for na ugh t if I didn 't
u se the first line of
defense from these
worms : full and ade
q uate back up . "
which will be screwed up by the '-' or ' t ' in
the u ppe r right hand corne r of your dis
play. Therefore , if you depress the CTR L
key three times, yo u'll be able t o togg le
the display capability of FLUSHOT t . The
default co nfiguration of F L U S HOT t is to
'come up' with display turned on. You can
reverse this capability if you i ncl ude the '
G' (for graphics) switch on your com m and
line when you run FLUSHOT t.
Interpreti ng a FLUSHOT + Trigger
So, you've run FLUSHOT +, and you're
at yo ur C> prom pt. Great! Now stick a
blank disk which you don't care about into
your A: drive and try to format it.
S u rprise ! F L U S HOTt caught the
attempt! You have three choices now: typ
ing 'Y' al lows the o peration to co nti nue,
but the next o ne will be caught as well .

Summer 1988

Pr e u e n t i o n
Typing a 'G' (for Go ! ) allows the operation
to continue, disabling F L U S HOT t until an
exit from the program is made . Whe n
FLU SHOT t is in the 'G' state , a 'G' will
appear in the upper ri g ht hand comer of
your screen.
Any otl1ef key wilt cause a failu re of the
operation to occ ur .
Whe n you've got F L U S HOT t running
and y o u g e t s i g n a l e d t h a t t h e re is a
problem , you s h o u l d t h i n k about what
m ight have caused the probl e m . S o m e
programs, l ike FOR MAT, o r t h e No rton
Utilities, P C -Tools, o r D R E P have ve ry
good reasons for doing direct reads and
writes to your hard disk. H owever, a public
domain checkbo o k accounting prog ram
doesn't. You'll have to be the judge of
what are legitimate operations and which
are questionable.
There is no reason to write to I B M B IO
or I BM OO S , right?
Wrong !
When yo u form at a disk with the 'IS'
option, those files are created on the tar
get diskette. The act of creating, opening
u p , and writing those f i l e s w i l l tri g g e r
FLUSHOT t a s part of its expected o pera
tion . There a re m a n y o t h e r l e g i t i m ate
operations which may cause FLUS HOT t
to trigger.
So will copying a CO M or EXE file if
you have those protected with a 'P=' com
mand. FLUSHOT t is not particularly intel
l igent about what is allowed and what isn't.
That's where you , the pilot, get to decide.
Here's a fuller l isting of the m essages
which yo u m ight see when you're using
FLUSHOTt :
Checking ===)(fi lename)
This

m essage

is

d i s p l ayed

as

FLUSHOT t checks the checksum on all of

t h e " C = " f i l e s w h e n you f i rs t i n v o k e
F L U S HOT t . T h e files m ust b e read i n
from disk, their checksum calculated and
t h e n c o m pared against the v a l u e y o u
claim the checksum should equal .
If the checksum does not equal what
you claim it should (which means that the
file may have been written to and m ight
therefo re be suspect) , a wi ndow will pop
u p in the m iddle of your screen :
Bad Checksum on (fi lename)
Actual Checksum Is: (checksum)
Press "Y" to allow, "G " to go til l exit,
any other key to exll
This m essage simultaneously advises
you there is a problem with the checksums
not matching , shows you what the check
sum s h o u l d be , a n d t h e n awaits y o u r
response .
Except for the initial run of FLUS HOT t ,
if y o u type a 'Y' or a ' G ' , then the program
wil l load and execute . Typing any other
key will cause the program to abort and
you will be returned to the C> prom pt.
When FLUSHOT t is in the 'G' state, a 'G'
will appear in the upper right hand comer
of your screen.
If this is the initial run of FLUS HOT t ,
howeve r, you ' l l be advised of the pro
gram 's actual checksum , but FLUS HOT t
will conti nue to run, checking all remaining
"C=" files in the FLU SHOT. DAT file.
If you're running a program and you
see a screen like :
? WARNING ! TSR Request from a n
unreg istered prog ram!
Number of paragraphs of memory
requested (In decimal) are : (cnt)
(Press any key to continue)
you're being advised that a program is

Summer 1988

(continued on next page)

Page 35

2600 Magazine

Con t r o l l i n g t h:
about to go TSR. If this is a program you
trust (such as S ide Kick, or KBHIT, or a
host of other TSR programs you've grown
to know and love), then you should con
s i d e r i ng i n s ta l l i ng a 'T
li n e i n t h e
FLUSHOT.DAT file so that future runs of
this program will not trigger FLUSHOT +.
However, if you get this m essage when
running a program you don't think has any
need to go TSR ( such as the proverbial
c h e c k bo o k bal a n c i n g p r o g ra m ), yo u
should be a l ittle suspicio u s . Having a
TSR program is not, in and of itself, some
thing to be suspicious of. But having one
you don't expect --- well, that's a different
story.
M o st TSR's ' hook i nto' an interrupt
vector before they go TSR. These hooks
m ight interce pt and process key stroke s
('hotkeys'), or they m ight hook and inter
cept direct disk writes them selves. In any
event, FLUS HOT + (in this version!) does
n't have the smarts to do more than advise
you of the T S R ' i n g of the program . I f
y o u ' re t r u l y s u sp i c i o u s, r e b o o t yo u r
machine im mediately!
If a program attem pts to write directly
to the interrupts which are reserved for
disk writes, FLUSHOT + will also be trig
gered and you'll see som ething like :
D i rect D i s k Write atte m pt by pro
g ram other than DOS!
(From Interrupt (xx))
Press "Y" to allow, G to go till exit,
any other key to fail.
where the (xx) represents either a 1 3
(indicating a direct B IOS write to the disk)
or a 26 (indicating a direct DOS write ) .
Again, pressing a 'V' or a 'G' allows the
operation to continue, pressing any other
key will cause the o pe ration to return a
=

"

Page 36

'

"

2600 Magazine

failed status to DOS , and the operation will

not take place . When FLUS HOT + is in the
'G' state, a 'G' wi ll appear i n the upper
right hand corner of your screen.
If an attempl is made to format your
disk, which may be a legitimate operatio n
made by the D O S FOR MAT prog ram ,
you'll see a message such as:
D i s k b e i ng formatted ! Are You
Sure?
Press "Y" to allow, "G " to go till exit,
any other key to fall.
which follows similarly to the direct disk
write o pe rati o n s . You sho uld q u e stion
whether the formal operation is appropri
ate at the time and take whatever action
you think is best.
If one of your prolecled files is aboul lo
be written to, you'll see a message like :
Write access being attempted on :
(filename)
Press "Y" to al low, "G " to go till exit,
any other key to fail.
where (filename) represents the fi l e
you're trying 10 protect from these write
operations. Your red flag should fly, and
you should question why the program cur
rently running should cause such an oper
ation.
You may also see the same type of
m e s s a g e w h e n o n e of y o u r ' R e a d
Protected' files is being accessed:
Read Access being attempted on:
(filename)
Press "Y" to allow, "G" to go til l exit,
any other key to fail.
Again, the same red flag should fly, but
it doesn't m ean that you're infected with
som e nasty virus program ! It could be
something harm less or i nte nded. You'll
have to be the judge.

Summer 1988

Finally, you may see a me ssage like:

CMOS has been chang e d !
Hit "Y" to continue, a n y other k e y to
restore CMOS.
which i ndicate s that yo ur CMOS has
been changed while you weren't looki ng.
Or m aybe yo u were : i f you 're running a
setup program which changes the date or
the ti me, or the disk type attached to your
AT class machine , this message should
pop up. Losing your CMOS is not fatal , but
can be an annoyance . If you hit a 'Y', then
the new setting of the CMOS wi ll be stored
and you'll be able to continue, with alerts
to any other change to the C MO S . Any
other key will result in the original setting
of the CMOS be i ng restored.
How Good is FLUSHOT + , Real ly?
FLUSHOT + is a pretty handy piece of
cod e . But i t can 't absolute l y protect yo u
from a worm . No software can do that.
There are ways around F L U S H O T + .
I'm of tw o minds about discussing the m ,
since the worm s o u t there are reading this,
too . So I'll only discuss them in passi n g .
And I'll t e l l you what I u s e here t o protect
m yse lf from worm s. First, though , a l i ttle
story to tel l you what it's l i ke here , and

how I protect m yself from gett i ng wormed .

The Ram N e t B u l l etin Board System
site I run is open access. No need to reg
i ster, or to leave yo ur phone n u m be r or
address, although a note to that effect i s
always appreciated. A s mentioned above ,
I dare the worm to try to affect the disk of
somebody who can fight back. A couple of
worm s have tried and I have a nice col lec
tion of T rojans a nd viruse s . Obviously, I
run FLUS HOT + on my board, along with
checking incom ing files with CHK4 BO M B .
My procedure for testing o u t newly upload
e d code i n vo l ves me d o i ng a back u p ,
i n stal l i ng all sorts o f software t o monito r
what is going o n , a n d dOing a checksum
on all files on the disk. I then try out all of
the code I get, primarily to determ ine if the
code is of high enough quality to be post
e d . Afte r test i n g out a l l of the wee k ' s
u pl o a d s , I r u n the c h e c ks u m p ro g ram
again to determine i f any of m y files m ight
have been m odified by a worm 's virus pro
gram .
Recently, what l ooked l ike a decent lit
tle di rectory lister was posted to the board.
For some reason I've yet to fathom , direc
to ry aid prog ram s see m to be the ones

(continued on next page)

S ummer 1988

2600 Magazine

Page 3 7

Y o u r

C o m p u t e r

which have the h i g h es t percentage of

Trojans attached to them .
This di rectory aid program l isted m y
d irectories i n a wonderful tree structure,
using diffe rent colors for different types of
files. Nice program . When it exited , how
ever, it went out and looked for a directory
with the word "FLU" in it. Once it found a
directory with a match in it, it proceeded to
try to erase all of the files i n that directory.
An assault! No big deal . That's what back
u ps are for.
But it brings up an i nteresting point: I
was attacked by a clever worm , and i t
erased a bunch of files which were pretty
val uable. All of the protection I had would
have been for naught i f I didn't use the fi rst
line of defense from these worm s : ful l and
adequate backup.
I 've spent three years of my life devel
o p i n g o n e particular software package .
I magine what would have happened if that
had bee n e rased by a worm ! Fortunately, I
m ake backups at least once a day, and
usually m o re frequently than that. You
should, too .
Now, I quaranti n e that m ac h i ne as
we l l . I spe n t a c o u p l e of d o l l ars and
bought a bunch of bright red floppy disks.
The basic rule around he re is that Red
Disks are the only disks that go into the
B B S m achine , and the Red Disks go into
no other machine. You see, I know that
the re is s o m e worm o u t there who is
gonna find some way to infect my system.
No m atter what software protection I use,
there is a way around it.
You needn't be concerned though
you're making backups on a regular baSis,
-

right? And you aren't asking for trouble. I

am , I expect to find it, and it is sort of

Page 38

2600 Magazine

C o u l d

B e

N e N t

amusing to see what the worms out there

are wasting their efforts o n .
A t this pOint, Trojans and viruses are
becom ing a hobby with me: watching what
the worm s try to do, figuring out a way to
defend aga i nst it, and then updating the
FLUSHOT series.
H owever, there is a pos sibility that the
FLUSHOT series (as well as other protec
tion program s which are just as val uable)
are causing an escalation of the term s of
this war. The wo rms out t here a re sick
individuals . They m ust enjoy causing the
damage they do. But they haven 't the guts
to stand up and actually do something in
perso n . They prefer to hide behind a m ist
01 anonym ity.
But you have the ultim ate defense ! No,
not the FLUSHOT + progra m .

Full and adequate backupsl

There are a variety of very good back

up programs which can save you m o re
work than you can i m a g i n e . I u s e the
FASTBACK+ program , which i s a great lit
tle progra m . I backup 30 m egs once in a
while, and do an i ncremental backup on a
very frequent basis. There are a variety of
very good commerCial, public dom a i n , and
shareware backup prog ram s out the re .
Use them ! Because , n o m atter what soft
ware protection yo u u se , so m ebody will
fi nd a way around it o n e day. B u t they
can't find a way aro u nd your backups.
And, if you (and everyone else) do regular
backups, you'll remove the only joy i n life
these worms have. They'l l kill hemselves,
hopefully, and an entire subspecies will be
wiped out -- and you'll be partially respon
sible !
M y a d v a n c e t h a n k s f o r h e l p i n g to
extermi nate these l ittle slime buckets .

Summer 1988

S U M M E RT I M E LETT E RS

(continucdfrom pagc 2 7)
(by d i al ing * 7 0 or
1 1 70) . O n t h e very n ex t page is

I t' s a m a z i ng h o w p op u l a r

waiting

a news r e l e a s e fr om B e l l c o re
ab o u t

deluxe

call

waiting .

which lies abo u t the newest

" m u lt H i e r e d " fe a t u re t o

p e n d c a l l wait ing. A

su s

usual .

s u rn rn e r

Also , I

er

n u mbers ! Scar!! , is n't it ?

the

lia rs want t o c h arge fo r a "new"

fe a t u re w h i c h a l r e a dy e x i s t s .
T h i s i s t y p i c a l o f t h e ge n i ll s
m i ne! o f M a B e l l . I h o p e t h a t
y o u w i 1 1 tl l u st ra t e t h i s a b u s(' i n
you r

hack
world. We did a l i t t le check
ing (we called 800 info) and got
8 0 0 - 3 2 5 -3388 . Three t o l l -free
t hese n u m be rs are in the

issu e ,

Wha t is Sprint
Up To ?

D e ar 2 600:
T h e v (' 1)'

d ay

t hat I

received
go t my

issu e , I a l s o

Spring

h av e m ix e d fe el i n g s
reg a rd i ng t h e q u a rk rly fOrTn a !.

vo u r

w a it ,

t o u c h m y b ill u n til I re ad y o u r

H i l i , as u s u al ,

We

it ' s w o r t h

the

GH

a c t u a l /!J d id

p o i ll t

t ha i
i fl j u l i c e o u t i n a p r e p i o u s
L'i '; ue. While i t is n ' t comp let ely
'J l ie (it s e e m s s 01 /t c body d i d
i' l l'crt ! some t h ing

Ie, ,-' n t

W il e b i t

Uw l does b a s ica l l lJ t h e

s a m e !l t ing as the old

c er tainlu q u a l ifies as
ing t he

cl ff

p u b l ic.

" * 70"), it
m i s lead

S p r in t

fi r s t.

bill.

1 read y o u r issu e

0 1 '. o u r s C' ,

l i t t le

bl u rL

billing
I i n fo r

abo u t

sy s t e m

' H a p pe ni ngs '

My bill was

Sp rint ' s

your

And

was

t ot al mess!

S p r i n t h a d d O I 1C two t h ings t o

m y b ill

as

from t h e

far a s I c o u l d

fathoIll

mess printed on t h o s e
page s . 1 ) They h ad c h a rg e d m e
fo r b u sy s i g n a l c a l l s . 2 ) Th ey
had

chpped

up l a rge c a l l s

4 o r 5 sma l l e r c a l l s .
I

New Falwe l l
Numbers

didn't

in

c ol u Il l I l .

su rp rise ,

and

called

Sprint

r igh t

inl

a w ay

a n d h a d it o u t w i t h t h e b il l i ng

p e rs o n . l i e g ave me c r e d i t fo r

D e ar 2600:
I j u st

g o t a h o l d o f t h e new
n u m b e r s fo r .J e rry
F alwe l l ' s Al l Time G o spel I l o u r!
Th e y a r e 8 0 0 - 3 4 5 - 8 0 9 5 a n d
bOO - '1 5 : 3 - 3 800 .

t o l l - fr e e

A True B e ll e v e r

a ll of t h e o n e m i n u t e b u sy c a l l s
( a b o u t 40 a l t o g e t h e r ) . As for

wh y t h ey d i d t h i s i n t h e fi r s t
pl ace

b i l l i ng

messed

d o n ' t k n o w . Is t h e i r
c om p u t e r real ly t h a t
u p t h a t t h ey c a n t k e e p
'

t ra c k of t h e s t a t u s of a c a l l?

They m u st have
happening,

S u m m e r 1 988

l o t of t h i s

b e c a u se

he

gave

(((In tin ltcd on n ext {luge)

2 6(){) MaKa zine

PaKe 3 9

2 6 0 0 L E TT E R S
me credit without too much of

ble (something a Lot oj phone

a problem .

p h re a ks w o uLd n o do u b t rel

t h a t ' s a different m a LL e r a l t o

Le t's a l l p u t them to t he tes t

g e t h e r . H e r e fu se d t o c h a nge

and keep logs. In Jaci, w hy not

As for the c h opped up calls,

my b illing t o make t h e series of

smaller c alls i nt o one big cal1....
I ' l l h ave to wri te
abo u t that one .

the comp a ny

H e re i wha: I w o u l d l ike yo u

guy s t o t h ink a b o u t :
know

abo u t t h ose

a ll

We

t h ieves wh o

i s h) . Le t ' s Jind o u t Jo r s u re .

do iUo, all oj the companies ?

if you have a letter for

send it to:
2 6 0 0 Le t ters

reprogram a b a nk ' s c om p u t e r

t o sh ave otT . 0000 1 p e r c e nt

of
all the a c c o u n t s in th e b a n k
and d ro p it i n t o a n o t h e r

P. O.

99

Box

Middle Is land, NY 1 1 953

O r sen d

usi ng

our

it

e l e c t ro n ic a l ly

b u l l e t i n b o a rds

our

stq[fbox.

mn a l l amo u nt t a ke n fro m t h e

i n s i g n i fi c a n t fo r a n y o n e t o
n o t i c e , b u t t h e t o t a l a m o u nt
c a n be qu ite larg e . Well , h e re

Regen B y ie

NORWAY n B S ') BY T O i l S
2 42 66 H 8
" 1 '5 1 6 1 0

DAr R B S

2 1 98 07

DuLahyslwkn

2 bS
2 92

C.ru; &:- VLne.

DA SAN

3 4\ 95 10

we h ave a long d istance com

long cans into smaller c alls and

l Iol S tuff B BS

Unhmiied
Hluge,nmd R B B S
lie Info H H S
2 Fido

92
R9

SO
52

2 24 37 4 0

Hack"

Modul.

4 7 1 010 4 tl
3 75 4\ 74

lJ. K

RBS'S

2 30 M I)()
6 97 JJ 3 5
BY J O l i N DRAKi

then charging the c a llers more

TBRS

for the first minute on all of the

I.ondon UndergmWld

863 0 1 98

Apple

039<1 276306

348 9<1 00

2000

s m a l l c a l l s . Th i s a m o u nt i s

Apple

Black '[OlVer

474 5 5 0 5

small a n d I d o n ' t re ally c are

l1r: OUl.er i .lmi l5

54 9 4845

A dwl PBB5

<>1862 25 1 7 4

ab o u t it . B u t if t h ey ' re doing

444

m 87 247 6 1 9

this to ALL c a llers - - how much

Airtel

200 3439

Mac Tel

Mega Anchovy

0602 4 5 5444

TlVl b ghl Zorr, (5T)

BHS09 (ST)

7 4 7 4662
7 8 8 08R4
m05 7 360'25

Ahr-rnak Re.l.lt ly

09 5 9 7 66 9 5

are they a c t u ally ma king p e r

month?

Cray-Z Phreaker
S kunk Works

is m Jact doing this , they could

204 87 5 5
<:>1 1 956 6537

Dublin

DO
SOO

323 746-1
365 6262

be Jacing an awJuL Lot oj tro u -

Page 40

260() Magazille

0268 7789565

<>123 865 392

What you're impLy ing here is

a very serious matter. IF Sprint

DRAKE

12 0'2 96

B I g Blue

ll . b y D&l.I. Klubb

pany that is c u tting u p callers '

or

n e t wo rk addresses l is ted i n

a c c o ll n t fo r t h eu1 s e lve s . T h e

i n d i v i d u a l a c c o u n t s w i ll b e

us ,

Su mmer 1 988

885634

800 BBS'S
THA NKS TO DE N NlS l'ROM LL
AND WHAI IN NEW YORK
800 222-4921
800 R42 1 5 1
8(l O 6 ] 2 72Z7

2 600
W A N TE D c o p i e d ( d e a d ) o r a l i v e !

M i chel l S t . , Rid l ey Park, P A 1 9 0 7 8 .

TAP'S " C " & " D " elec . courses. Cassette

T h i s p l a n is completely LEG A L .

4 . H ave a n y or all? Contact me-will

C o m p l e t e s e t ( # 1 -9 1 ) p u n c h e d a n d

ing to pay good m o ney for orig ' s . B.

bound . H i g h quality copies with a l l

tape (TAP exclusive), & fac t sheets # 1 -

Q U A L ITY

TAP

RE P R I N T S .

B a r t o n , 8 4 D a p h n e C re s . , B a r r i e ,

special

Ontario L 4 M 2Y9 . (705-726-66 1 7)

s h i p p e d U PS o r U S PS o r $ 9 0 / s e t

su pplemental s .

$75 / set,

WANTED: A l l newer hard ware you

s h i p p e d Fed e r a l E x p r e s s . M o ne y

fi n d a m u s t t o quic k l y get rid o f .

orders o nly, payable t o Jeff. TZG, P.O.

P r o d u c t e v a l u a t i o n s a r e w e l c o m ed .

Box 1 5 1 5, Columbus, NE 6860 1 - 1 5 1 5 .

Also looking for Technics SL1 200 and

WANTED: G-file "I3ctter H o m e s a n d

any i n forma tion related to pirate radio

B1ueboxing Part 2" by Mark Taba s . I f

( i n c l u d i n g s t o r i e s w r i t t e n by e x

anyone can provid e a hardcopy,

pirates, gro u p s, equ i p m e n t i n forma

please send i t to J RE, 1 447 G raber Dr.,

tion, FCC) for a write-u p . David J o n

Cleveland, OH 441 07.

Hyams, E 9 1 1 6

Sprague

Av.,

Apt.

111,

Spokane,

WA:

'

BACK
I S S UES, com-

ete s et Vol .

Q U A L I T Y

99206

from
COPIE S

H o f f m a n ' s
"Stea I

Th i s ,:,:,:,:,:::,:::::,:,:,:,:,:,:::,:,:,:,:,:,:1""::'=!':

$2 shipping & handling.

postpaid via UPS or First Class Mai l .

M a rco, P . O . Box 1 2 1 1 , Westerly, RI

C a s h / M O s e n t s a m e d a y, checks t o

Book" . $7 .95

0289 1 .

Pete G . , P.O. Bo x 463, M t . Laurel, NJ

FOR SALE: Ultimate blue box, Berry

08054 . We are the original; all others

Electronics M od el 3 1 2A trunk test set,

are copies !

has rotary d ial / M F keypad, monitor

FOR SALE: Okidata Microline 92 per

speaker. Uses L-C o scillators. V E RY

s o n a l p r i n t e r . I n c l u d e s m a n u a l for

stable. Can be used as Std phone when

i n struct i o n s . Hardly u sed . M a ke an

h ea d / h a n d s e t a d d ed . $ 25 0 . W r i t e :

offer and if it's reasonable, I will pay

Testset, 6 7 1 5 Eberlein Ave., Klamath

postage.

Falls, OR 97603.

Howell, M I 48843.

Matt

K e l l y,

31 0

I sb e l l ,

WANTED: Any hacker and phreaker

2600 MEETI N G S . First Frid a y of the

s o ft w a re for I B M c o m p a t i b l e a n d

month at the Cit icorp Center-from 6

H ayes compatible mod e m . If you are

to 8 pm in the M arket (also known a s

selling or know anyone who is, send

t h e lobby with t h e tables where a l l o f

replies t o A . H . M o o n , 25 A m a ra n th

t h e weird os h a n g o u t ) . Located a t 1 53

Crt., Toronto, ONT., Ca nada M6A 2Pl .

East 53rd Street, New York City. Come

W O U LD

by, d r o p off articles, a sk quest i o n s .

YOU

LIKE

TO

MAKE

SOME MO NEY? Big money? Send a

business sized S.A.S.E. to: J . Duffy, 408

Ca11 51 6-751 -2600 for still more info.

Deadline for Autumn Issue: 8/3 1/88.

S ummer 1988

2600 Magazine

Page 41

VI.

K E E P YOUR A D D R E S S CURRENT

1 0 a s s i s t t h e C o u r t a n d t h e p a r t i e s in m a i n t a i n i n g an a c c u r a t e l i s t 01 the mp.rnbers of t h f' C!;}!';<;, pip a ,> '" notify t h r:l N k

t h p Court of any r. h a n g e of address.
A l l Pl oofs of Claim, E" x c luslon Noticp,,>. not icflo; of i n l fl n l i n n 10 appf"ilf. ob jec t i o ns. and <lrldre5s corrections should be
a ct d r esf>d 1 0 :
C l e r k of t h e U n i t e d S t a l e s District Court
Eastern District 0' Michigan
Aline' C l a s s Action
P . O . Box 2 7 7
E N T E R E D BY ORDER O f :
F r a n k l i n , M ichigan 48025
Honorable A n n a Diggs Taylor. Judge
United Stales District Court
Eastern District of Michigan
Detroit, Michigan

01

Clerk
United Stales District Court
Eastern District of Michigan
Detroit. Michigan

Dated: March 30. 1 9 8 8

P R O O F OF CLAIM
T o participate i n t h e settlement. you must complete this Proof of C l a i m and mall it ( along w i t h t h e address label
below ) t o t h e Clerk of t h e United States District Court. Eastern District o f Michigan, A l l net Class A c t i o n ,
P . O. Box 2 7 7 . Franklin. Michig an 48025. Tbl. Proof or Claim muol '" _ t mork ed on or ",Ior. July 2', 1111. Please
print or type_
1.

Name of claimant
Add ress

____

_.___ _ _ _ _ _

._ _ _ _
_ ____ _ _ .

___ _ _ _ _

__________ ___ _ ______

Telephone number where you can be reached during bulne99 hOur9

_ _
__

.. _
)

, __

Name and position of person completing t h i s form If claimant i s not an individual

Allnet account number

_ _ _ _ ______________

2.

Check here

3.

Please choose one of the four options listed below.

__

A.

it

____ __

claimant Is currently an Allnet subscriber .

_ __ _

___ _

____

___

..

__ _ _ _ _ . _ _ . _ _ _ _

Please provide the Information r equested .

B.

or

Siondordi.ed Credll

_ _ _ _ __ __

__ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _

,_. ____ _

_ _ ._.

BI.ndordl.ed C h Retund

Subject t o the pro rata provisions set forth above i n Section II of the Notice of Settlement, a S t a n d a r d ized
Credit or Cash Refund equals 90 cents lor each year you were a customer.
(I)

Please circle each year or part of a year i n which you wel e an Allnet customer.

( ii )

T olal number of years circled

1981
1 982

C.

_ _ __

1983
1984

1985
___ _. ...

or

Itemized Credit

D.

itemized C h Relund

S u b j ec t to the pro rata provisions set forth above In Section II of the Notice of Settlemen t . an Itemized Cred:, t
or Ca sh Refund e q u a l s 30 c e n l s f o r e a c h m i n u t e of unanswered calls f o r which you w e r e charged .
(II

( II )

( til )

4,

Provide the 'allowing Information lor each unanswered call lor which you were charged and have not received
a prior credit or refund. This Information may be provided by attaching caples of your bills with the calls
circled
Area Code
And
Number Called
Date of Call
Number of Minutes
---- - -- . - - -- .. , ..

Total number of minutes listed

__ _ _

Please altach copies 01 the bills lor each call listed. II you no longer have the bills, prOvide the Allnet access
code to which the calls were billed, or " an access code was not usAd. the tAlephone numl:'lr to which
the calls were billed _ ..

I f yo u chose t h e .t.ndardized credit or itemized credit options. and you a r e n o t c u r r n t l y an Aline! c u s t o m e r .

you mu st complete t h e f o l l o w i n g authorization f o r m :
I authorize Allnel 10 nollfy my local t e l e p h o n e c o m p a n y t h a t I am c h o o s i n g Allnet as m y P r i m a r y Long D i s t a n c e
C a r r i e r on t h e t e l e p h o n e number listed b e l o w . I understand t h a t :

(I)

If

( II I

While Allnet will be m y Primary l onq Distance Carrier,

al any lime I wish.

( iii )
(Iv)
(v)

I Incur a telephone company service charge I n connection with the opening o f m y Allnel account, I will receive a
credit to be applied 10 my Allnet account lor the full amount of such service charqe upon submission to Allnel.
at the address to which this authorization form WAS senl, of a copy of the Invoice for such chRirge
I

will also be able t o place call9 with A T & T or any olhp, c a r r l "' r 9

mAy choose only one Primary Lonq Dlc;tflcp. C a n ip.r lor the lic;lP.d lp.I"'phone numb'!r
on, t h i s ''If!I'!r.tion will be invali<1I'"

If I chao,""

Anothr

r. ::I . nN

1'Pr

I m a y c. han g e t o another carriei' a t any t i m e . and. ,1 1 d o , m y local t '!lepho ne compmy M a y apply a servic. ... r.h.gp.
t may deSignate only one telephone number. The tetephone number listed below i s the one lor which I A m m A k ing

this

designation

CuslomPf nAme _
Name

01

billing contact (" dlnerent I _ ._

Billing address __ __ . _

_ __

Suite or apart ment no _ _ ____ _ _ _ _

C ! l y _ ________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ S te t e

, _ __ _ _ _. _
__ _

lnslal!31ron a d d r e s s ( if d.lferen I J __ ___ _

T e l E" p h o n e n u mbe r to be connected ( _ _ __

DAIA

__ _

_ _

Signature

C E RTIFICATION AND R E L E A S E
I certify u n d e r p e nal ty of p e r j u r y that I A m authorized to m A k e I h l s c l l'I l m , t h a t the c l a i m a n t was an A l l net c u s t o m e r a l
s o m e t i m e d u r i n g t h e p e r i o d M a r c h 2 , 1 9 8 1 1 hro u g h December 3 1 , 1 9 8 5 , Rnd t h a i t h e c l a i m a n t was c h a r ged for
u n a n sWNed calls for which n o credit or refund was previously recp.ived t f u r t h e r certify thai all Information I n t h i s Pr o o f of
C l a i m i s t r u e a n d correct t o t h e best of my knowledge, Information and belief; t h a i t h e c l a i m a n t d i d nol elect 10 be excluded from
t h e S e t t l e m e n t C l a s s ; t h a t t h e undersigned Is the claimant or i s authorized to execute and s u b m i t t h i s Proof of C l a i m on
c l a i m a n t ' s behalf; and that this claim is the only claim being s u b m i t t e d I n this set tlement by or on behalf of t h e c l a i m a n t .
I n c o n s i d e r a t i o n of t h e r i g h t to receive benefits under the settlement, t h e c l a i m a n t expressly covenants and a g r e e s t h a t
h e / s h e / i t s h a l l not now or h e r e a f t e r i n s t i t u t e , m a i n t a i n or a s s e r t any c l a i m r e ( a t l n g t o the b i l l i n g of c l a i m a n t f o r
u n a n sw e re d c a l l s by Allnet d u r i n g the p e r i o d from March 2 , 1 9 8 1 t h rough December 3 1 , 1 9 8 5 . C l a i m a n t further r e l e a s ,," s a l l
c l a i m s a g a i n s t A l l n e t , i t s predecessors, successors, aff i l i a t es. a s s i g n s and I t s officers, directors. agents and e mployees.
pa st a n d present, that have been, might have been. are now or could be asserted I n t h e lawsuits described I n t h e Notice or
that relate i n any way t o t h e matters alleged In t h e complaints I n those lawsuits.

Page 42

2 600 Magazine

Summer 1988

Ph otos by
Joh n Dra k
e
Sum mer 1988

2600 Magazine

Page 43

1 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = == = = === = = == = = =

List

Of

NUlbers

Rev . l . u

TYlnet

( 800 ) 358-58 80

??

( 800 ) 4 2 1 -0082

( 800 ) 424 - 9494

T HUNDER SEVEN ' S

1 80 u 1 336-U 1 4 9

Ii
1 = = = = = = == = == == = = = == = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = == = 1

( 800 ) 34 5 - 3 8 78
( 80 0 1 3ti8-3343
( 8 00 1 42 1 -0092

( 800 ) 4 2 ti - 2 ti 38
( 80 0 ) 4 44 - 44 7 2
( 800 1 52 1 -2255

(800) 526-37 1 4

COlp i l e d as o f 5 / 4 / 8 8

( 80 0 ) 533-5294

T e l e x [ 1 20 u ]
T h e Sour c e
'

p l ease LOG I N '

i?
Tel enet
So f t Sear c h
Nov e l l
Aut o n e t

RCA

( 800 ) 5 33- 52 95

( 800 1 533 - 5 29 6

+ - ----------------+

( 800 ) 5 3 3 - 5 2 '1 7

: ( 800 1 COMPUTERS :

( 80 0 ) 533-5298

+-----------------+

( 80 0 ) 533-5299

??

( 80 0 1 222-00 1 1
( 80 0 1 222-0555

Wor l d Bank Mal n f r a le

( 80 0 ) 223-33 1 2

C i t i C or p

( 800 1 2 2 7-0074

R I 5 BBS

( 80 0 ) 227 -3404

Bowlan N e t w o r k
??

??

( 800 ) 2 28-0329

1300 b a ud on l y *

??

( 800 1 22 8 -06 1 6

Mar y l an d C . C .

( 80 0 1 228-0748

??

( 80 0 ) 228-0993

BCS

( 80 0 1 228-0994

V i sa ( ? )

( 80 0 1 228- 1 1 7 0

??

( 800 1 228- 1 657

Tel enet

( 800 ) 32 1 - 1 646

?? 1300

( 8 00 ) 32 1 -3 9 1 0

??

( 800 ) 325 - 4 1 1 2

Easy l i n k

( 800 ) 327 -%38

Easynet

( 80 0 1 328-0024

??

( 80 0 ) 328-0 1 3 7

1?

( 80 0 1 826-8855

AM . Peop l e l l n k

( 800 ) 84 7 - 0 1 0 9

( 80 0 1 828-632 1

XEROX
??

( 80 0 1 848-4480

COlpuse r v e

GEn i e

[ D I AL : ]

+-----------------------+

: V O I CE MESSAGE S Y S TEMS :
+-----------------------+

PH I LNE T

( 800 ) 238-063 1

Dat a l y n x

AT&T Mal l

( 80 0 1 852-0005

BCS

( 80 0 1 228- 1 1 1 1

F ; eedol n e t wo r k 1 3 0 0 b au d o l y t

P a t h o l ogy C l e o

( 80 0 ) 6 2 4 - 5 1 23

( 80 0 1 638-8369

[UnI X ]

( 80 0 1 2 2 8-0003

( 800 1 62 1 - 1 4 1 1

( 8 00 I ti2 1 -9080

I BM 3708

( 80 0 ) 228-00 1 8

C I N T I OH AD
AQ r i d a t a

( 800 ) 6 2 1 - 4243

( 800 ) 2 2 7 -3083
( 80 0 ) 22 7 - 6544

( 8 0 0 ) 543-0 0 1 0
( 80 0 1 558-00 0 1

baud

on l y .

( 20 1 1 953-2222
( 3 1 7 ) 26 7 - 1 90 1

VMB5
VMB5

( 4 1 5 1 330 - 783 1

VMBS

( 4 1 5 1 338-70uO

ASPEN

( 4 1 5 ) 463-60'3'3

VMBS

( 4 1 5 1 882 - 7 1 7 0

V"BS

YMBS

??

( 70 3 ) 9 3 4 - 3400

( 80 0 ) 328-0 1 8 7

BWRR

( 800 ) 328-i;198

??

800 ' 5 are MUCH b e t t e r

( 80 0 ) 328-40 1 1

??

( 80 0 1 328-0 1 5 7

Page 44

2600 Magazine

( 80 0 1 222 -03 1 1

ASPEN

( 800 ) 2 22 - 4663

VM85

Summer 1988

. .

i n g r am I t ( h o oa r d

G ') !) ) i 7 7 - M A I L
l a ') I) U - V U I I. E

i i) l ( e ).j n , t a n o t n e r d I a l u p

1 8UO l i 4 - " A 1 L

Mer i d I an M a l i

I dOO J i b l - 8 4 ; 7

I. b i) l) .! ;j 7 7 - T A ll'

; o U I} ) ti 8 8 - u \.! j \ !

i 8uu l 8dd-MA I L

l uu ! 2 j - S I 7
l 80U l 3 2 3 - 8 2 1 4

VMHj
VMhj

I buU ! J j l - l i b

I nnovat I ve So f t wa r e

l du 0 ) j 2 J - 1 J 4

!. ;j ij ij } :j.3 .3 - fi A 1 L
i C;' i) (! i 3 4 ': - M A l L
l. o l. <' I o 4 4 - 1 d 8 4

! 80 u ! j4b- I U4

i uU ) 4 2 - 7 5 j 4

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