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I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

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Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#181

Post by lr1970 »

stank345 wrote: post #166
torpid wrote: post #27

My FBI file was for hacking into my school district's AS/400 that handled my school's attendance and grading system. Somehow using a public IP address with no access restrictions allowed a clear telnet path in from home. Compounding username and passwords that were all the same for every employee. I didn't change a thing, just LOLed and told someone. Bad mistake. This was the late 90s. Oh well, 2 week suspension and…

> they didn't shadow protect their password files Could you please explain what this means? Googling didn't reveal much.

> Could you please explain what this means? Googling didn't reveal much.

An classic UNIX /etc/passwd file is readable by all local users and in the past used to contain the password hashes. One can download these hashes and crack the passwords offline. At some point the problem was recognized and password hashes were moved to special /etc/shadow file which is accessible only to root and members of shadow group making /etc/passwd useless for extracting passwords.

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#183

Post by drfuchs »

belval wrote: post #3

This story (assuming it's true) should serve as an excellent example of why you need privacy even if you think that you don't. In peace time the NSA is only looking for "terrorist" and leaves everyone alone, but in case of war they would start creating lists for any and everything. All it takes is one "tough" agent trusting their gut feeling/algorithm based on your browsing history and shopping habits to put a target…

Yeah, he's for real, and I heard him tell this story (and a number of others) about 40 years ago, for what that's worth. In addition to his other info on the web mentioned elsewhere here, there are also quite a selection of his files from the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) system, that have been pulled off of old backup tapes, and with permission appear at https://www.saildart.org/LES (note the 3-letter account name, and 3-letter, single-level subdirectory names that you can click down into).

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#184

Post by nicbou »

angst_ridden wrote: post #115

A person I know studied in East Germany in the early 80s via a very limited exchange program. After the wall came down, she requested her Stasi file. It was fascinating what was in the file - lots of misunderstandings and misinterpretations. For example, she was upset when the Challenger exploded, and this mystified the Stasi informers who had previously identified her as a pacifist (in their minds, the Shuttle was 1…

This might be a good way to explain my discomfort with online tracking.

Machines categorising you based on your behaviour, without your knowledge nor your consent. It's not so bad when it serves you ads (unless it sells alcohol to alcoholics), but there's no telling what similar algorithms would say about you in the hands of a rogue government. They can find vulnerable people, people who hate certain people [0], people who talk to certain people or hold certain ideas.

What makes it even more terrifying is that machines can categorise people much faster, based on a much broader set of information. It's not just informants and paper reports, but computers processing and connection millions of data points.

I'm bringing all of my data together[1], and the result is a graph of every place I've visited, every conversation I've had, everything I looked up, every book I've read, every transaction I've made, every video I've watched and everyone I've talked to. There's even more data about me in the wild, and if you combined it with other people's data, you could figure out even more about my every move.

It's a good thing that the Stasi was a few decades early.

[0] https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-enabled-advertis...

[1] https://nicolasbouliane.com/projects/timeline

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#185

Post by ddingus »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #124
bitwize wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A year and a half ago, I found an entire HP Elite 8300 standing by the dumpster in the rain. It was only missing a hard disk (likely removed to be shredded). I brought it in, checked it for rust or damage, let it dry for several days, and ordered a hard drive for it. It runs fine, and I use it as a repo/build server.

Nice. I have an SGI Indigo that I will probably never be able to use again because I forgot its login credentials years ago. And I think the monitor was proprietary to SGI and I tossed because it took up too much room. Then again, I could probably find a downloadable OS for it somewhere online.

Unless it's been secured, you can probably boot using the miniroot on the installation media, go to the password file and clear the root password and save.

Restart that Indigo, and log on as root, no password.

When doing various services on these machines, I would keep a drive ready to boot miniroot. Would clear the root password, archive the hash, then do the work, put it back and on to the next gig. Most of the time nobody even knew what that password was.

Took {big company IT} quite a while to finally call and ask how those services were getting done...

http://www.sgistuff.net/mirrors/4dfaq/index.html#bootsash

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#186

Post by errcorrectcode »

c0nsumer wrote: post #5

Be sure to read the follow-up ( https://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/cyclops/bash1.htm ) about the challenges the author faced in trying to help move forward a reasonably safe standard for bicycle helmets.

If bicycle helmets were essential for causal-speed, safe path, everyday bicycling, the Dutch would use them.

Interesting fact: in the US, riders without helmets receive more average buffer space from road vehicles than those with.

If you're downhill mountain biking, wear a proper helmet. If you're racing in Manhattan, wear an equally suitable helmet. If you're leisurely riding on a wide, empty side road in a residential area and cycle often, it may lend more placebo overconfidence to the rider than it confers necessary protection. It seems like gearing-up in knee and elbow pads to go for a simple walk.

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#187

Post by chasd00 »

In my college (late 90s) no one cared if you put an interface into promiscuous mode and there was no encryption anywhere. I had so many aim and campus system accounts from packet sniffing I didn’t know where to start. Following aim conversations of people in my dorm was pretty funny though.

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#188

Post by nefitty »

RotaryTelephone wrote: post #153
lokimedes wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had sysadmin rights on my school’s Windows servers after some very simple social engineering (for a 10 year old). The real irony was that I was called to the principal’s office on multiple occasions because I seemed to be able to fix things on the network that the local “admin” (e.g. music teacher) couldn’t. Fun times indeed. It completely ruined my respect for authority figures. Which in retrospect has been the mo…

Had a similar problem with feeling betrayed by authority figures when I was called in to be questioned about a hacking incident while in middle school just because I was good at VB in programming glass. Can really ruin a kid's confidence for years to come in case anyone in such position is reading this now.

I can point to several false accusations I suffered as an elementary school student that made me deeply skeptical and wary of authority.

"Even if I color in the lines, or intentionally dabble in creative thinking, some adult might yell at me... Hm. I don't need their permissions. They obviously don't see how great I am so they are a dumb nuisance."

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#189

Post by LocalH »

jpmoral wrote: post #149
lokimedes wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had sysadmin rights on my school’s Windows servers after some very simple social engineering (for a 10 year old). The real irony was that I was called to the principal’s office on multiple occasions because I seemed to be able to fix things on the network that the local “admin” (e.g. music teacher) couldn’t. Fun times indeed. It completely ruined my respect for authority figures. Which in retrospect has been the mo…

>It completely ruined my respect for authority figures. It looks like they realised they were out of their depth and found someone who could help. Were they wrong to trust you? Edit: I may have misunderstood your post. Did you mean: A. The principal and the music teacher asked you to help out a few times because they knew you were skilled B. You were always the first suspect when anything went wrong I understood it a…

It sounds like they weren't called to the principal's office to fix things, but after the fact and in a disciplinatory fashion.

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#190

Post by LocalH »

908B64B197 wrote: post #141
lokimedes wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had sysadmin rights on my school’s Windows servers after some very simple social engineering (for a 10 year old). The real irony was that I was called to the principal’s office on multiple occasions because I seemed to be able to fix things on the network that the local “admin” (e.g. music teacher) couldn’t. Fun times indeed. It completely ruined my respect for authority figures. Which in retrospect has been the mo…

> It completely ruined my respect for authority figures. It sounds like they were right to trust you? Doesn't sound like you ever did anything bad with admin credentials. And you even used it to fix stuff.

My reading is that they weren't called to the principal's office to fix things, but after the fact and in a disciplinatory fashion.
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