I’d say it’s a tribute to the tolerance of the administrators that gl0worm lasted as long as she did. Yes, our snot-nosed anarchist appears to be a 17-year old girl, although I’d prefer to believe it was a pesky little brother using big sis’s screen name. Last time I encountered this person, they were using their rudimentary technical skills to disrupt a chat room. At least there you can put people on “ignore.”
The screen name in the other venue was gl0worm. Same spelling, down to the ‘0’. That account’s still active, unfortunately.
BTW - I shouldn’t have to say this, but please DO NOT attempt to locate and/or harass this person. I don’t want to get accused of starting shit on another system and maybe lose my own account over there.
An interesting sociological issue, is it not? Punk starts hacking and annoying people with childish pranks, for no good reason and with poor grammar and spelling, and we all automatically assume it is a boy. Instead, it turns out it may be a little girl. How terribly sexist of us all, to assume that only boys can be morons.
Um, I would like to point out that my posts were gender-neutral both here and in the thread in the “About” board. As the father of daughters, I do not automatically assume that any self-involved rude child is male.
Touche’, Doc. You were indeed careful to be gender-neutral. I didn’t actually go through and check that everyone in the conversation referred to gloworm as a ‘him’.
I am going to hop on the train that feels bringing in the cops is an over-reaction. At best, this is a petty matter they would probably ignore.
If the board ops wanted to take meaningfull action, a better course would be to take a look at the logs and deterimine who provides internet service to the wonder worm.
A quick e-mail from an administrator informing the ISP that their server is being used to launch attacks on another server would not be ignored.
A threat of legal action in the event any serious damage occurs as a result of their inaction would most likely result in the wormholes net access being canceled.
This would not escape buttworm’s parents attention.
If a kid can’t make a connection between actions & consequences, it’s up to adults to help make the connection.
Ideally, this job should fall to the parents. But if they can’t/won’t deal with it, society needs to take a tough stand against petty crime before the kid graduates to bigger stuff because no one has let him/her know that even the small “pranks” are not funny & are not harmless & will not be tolerated.
And these jerks are not not harmless. Our admins have have to create multiple new “rules” in the last few weeks to further define what is not acceptable behavior. We all enjoyed Santa’s posts; now a second screen name could get a reg banned. I’ve enjoyed the flexibility html adds to (mostly other smarter people’s) posts; now we’re threatened with losing html. Worse, the tension created between members over these issues seriously detracts from the fun of this board. If even one regular poster leaves on account of these posts & the threads they generate, this board has been irreparably harmed. Once again, these pranks are not harmless.
That’s why MB admins, ISP admins, &/or the police may, unfortunately, have to step in. No one is suggesting that this is a serious crime & that jail time is warranted. But loss of ISP access, or a misdemeanor conviction with a fine and/or community service time might get the brat’s attention & allow him/her to see that actions do have consequences.
Barring that, I expect a magnifying glass could really make this worm gl0. Would that be slow enough, Manny?
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
I have 3 arguments, in reverse-alphabetical order:
Pffft.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. ihahahahha… heh…
coochie coochie coochie… cute gloworm… look at it play
Of course. I’m sure that rounding up all the HTML bandits will teach the other criminals a lesson.
First of all, it’s not even close to the same thing and secondly, you “have to” spend that money whether or not the server is crashed. The crash just shows the vulnerability, it doesn’t change anything. How can you even bring up an example like this? It’s completely ridiculous.
I cast mockery and scorn upon you.
Mock, mock.
Scorn, scorn.
There are few acts that could be be immediately labeled as stupid without any further inquiry. That is stupid.
Even they would not hesitate to openly deride you.
Konrad, I would call you stupid, but it would be an insult to stupid people, who after all have to have someone to look down on - and thanks, by the way, for fulfilling the vital role; I’m sure they appreciate it.
We have standing orders in our office to contact the FBI on any instance of unauthorized comp[uter use. Period.
(Actually, we call SAM, the Single Agency Manager, the organization that handles networking in the Pentagon, and they call the FBI. The point is, the FBI gets called, and investigates any such event… because the big brass has said very clearly that they don’t want to read a story in the Washington Post about how some high schooler foiled the Department of Defense)
The bottom line is this, asswipe: there are organizations that take this stuff very seriously. DOD (rightly) is one. The Straight Dope may not, and that’s their privilege; they are only housing the world’s knowledge, after all, and not anything critical to national defense).
You’re right that firewalls need to be purchased regardless.
And your remaining arguments deserve no response except a suggestion that I believe I may have met your sister in a New Orleans house of prostitution. She says hi.
Um, Konrad, “DOD” stands for “Department of Defense.” As in the United States Military.
They do take compsec pretty fucking seriously.
Konners–you aren’t an idiot. But you have a nasty fucking habit of pretending you know more than you do. There’s a strong possibility that Rick knows what he’s talking about.
Actually, andros, I think there’s a strong possiblity that he’s flat out just making things up.
He’s already admitted to making up words here; why should an argument be any different?
He weathered a firestorm of agony and did not break.
And while Yori raged against his unbending
courage, we took Kyuden Hiruma back.
His loss is great, but so is the gift his suffering brought.
-Yakamo’s Funeral
andros: I know what DOD is. The problem, since Bricker can’t express himself clearly, is that he implied the DOD would take The Straight Dope’s problems with gloworm seriously. I think what he’s actually trying to say is that if gloworm did the same thing to a DOD webpage it would be taken seriously. Even that is doubtful. Sure, they might report it to the FBI because it’s their policy but the FBI wouldn’t do anything.
You don’t have to know very much about computer security to realize the FBI is not going to spend thousands of dollars of people’s time by going after someone like that. First of all, what would the Straight Dope claim it lost? $7.35 in advertising? Secondly what crime would she be charged with? What was illegal about what she did?
Bricker: If you’re going to assault me, do it with arguments not with insults. Your insults are really pathetic. I’m not telling you this to piss you off. I just wanted to let you know to save you further embarrassment. Really, honestly, seriously. Don’t try to insult me. You’re not funny or clever.
I don’t know if it’s your simian ancestry or your multiple cranial injuries that make you think the way you do. If I saw you in the street I would point at you and taunt you, and I would call on others to do the same. Your grasp of reality is obviously pretty fragile and you need to have some sense knocked into you.
In fact, go call the FBI right now. Then come back here and tell me what they said so I can taunt you some more.
No, Konrad, you freaking moron! Bricker didn’t even imply what you’re saying he said. He said flat-out:
posted 01-24-2000 05:50 PM
For those of us not anywhere near as stupid as you, that means exactly what it says: that if gl0worm had done this damage to a DoD computer in Bricker’s office, not to a Chicago Reader-owned computer, the appropriate federal authorities would have been called.
Apparently, Bricker can express himself clearly. The problem, however, is you don’t know how to understand folks with more intelligence than you. Damn shame that appears to be the entire freaking planet.
You are wayyy off on this one. If you so much as ping a DoD firewall you will attract attention. Go as far as to alter content on a page, your ISP will CERTAINLY get an E-mail from someone way up the communications foodchain.
You point is pretty much on mark though, if the intrusion is found to be just some dumb kid screwing with a low level page, it’s doubtfull any black vans will be pulling up. More likely scanario is the ISP would freak out upon recieving an email from a national security agency and yank the account.
IMHO, I think you guys have exhausted your flames for the worm, and have turned on each other.
Let’s face it, worm’s offenses are equivalent to vandalism. To compare Chicago reader to DOD is like comparing vandalism on a private company vs. the Pentagon. Obviously a highly secure facility will pay more attention to security breaches.
Clearly it should not be ignored, and according to Ed Zotti, she was kicked off. What do you think a court would do to a first time offender for vandalism? Pay the damages probably; maybe a fine, maybe community service. Somehow a death sentence for our little worm seems a little harsh…
Um, Konrad? The FBI has its own DIVISION for computer security. And if Bricker called, I have no doubt they’d do something. Mainly because they’re idiots and always overreact, but that’s my personal opinion.
Ghandi - good point. FBI/DoD wouldn’t have to do much beyond send a letter…the ISP would take care of everything else.
Unquestionably, the consequences would not be severe even if this exact scenario happened to a defense-operated computer. About all that would happen would be a call to the ISP, or possibly to the child’s parents. No one would get tossed in prison.
But I didn’t make any claim about consequences. I just said that the FBI would be called. And they would; it’s operational policy. In fact, the FBI COMSEC folks have run drills where they deliberately initiate a security breach and see if they get a call about it from our admin people. They’ve done everything from deliberately attack a router to modify a feedback section (using HTML on the comments page, very similar to gloworm’s trick). They investigate these things, and they take them seriously. Gone are the days when you had to lose $1M in data before the FBI will take note.
But, Konrad, you’re right about one thing. My attempts to be insulting did not reflect well on me. I broke my own rule: never post angry. I had just finished shovelling the driveway, and I was irked. I withdraw all of my vituperative comments, and I hope you’ll accept my apology for that.
And the freaking moron population increased by one. Good grief! Nobody compared the Reader to the DoD. Bricker merely pointed out that some outfits consider vandalism of their property to be a serious offense.