From: "Mark O. Aldrich" <maldrich@grci.com>
Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 11:27:14 +0800
To: Cypherpunks Mailing List <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: More involuntary c'punk subscriptions on the way?
Message-ID: <Pine.SCO.3.91.960514124732.10594E-100000@grctechs.va.grci.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


In the May '96 issue of Computer Security Alert, Padgett Peterson 
provides an explanation of how mail bombing is done.  It's on page 3 
under the "E-mail Security" column with the headline "Mad Bombers on the 
Net."  In the article, Padgett explains the three "stages" of mail 
bombing:  First is to send ungodly amounts of mail from you to the 
target, the next is to post something offensive under a forged ID to one or 
more of the "less ruly" [his words] USENET groups, such as alt.2600 or 
alt.tasteless [his citations], and the third is to subscribe people to 
mailing lists against their will using forged e-mail.

Naturally, Padgett (bless his twisted little mind) indicates that the 
most severe results can be achieved by sending forged subscription 
requests to "the larger listservers such as cypherpunks", that generate in 
excess of a hundred messages a day.

Since hackers and wannabes probably read INFOSEC publications with more 
zeal than do INFOSEC practitioners, I'd say we're likely to be in for even 
more of the "I don't want to be on this list" sorts of traffic.

And Padgett, next time you get interviewed on mail bombing by the press, 
why don't you point them to "The KISS Army Mailing List," or something of 
that sort?

------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
|      Liberty is truly dead              |Mark Aldrich                 | 
|    when the slaves are willing          |GRCI INFOSEC Engineering     | 
|     to forge their own chains.          |maldrich@grci.com            | 
|        STOP THE CDA NOW!                |MAldrich@dockmaster.ncsc.mil | 
|_______________________________________________________________________| 
|The author is PGP Empowered.  Public key at:  finger maldrich@grci.com |
|    The opinions expressed herein are strictly those of the author     | 
|         and my employer gets no credit for them whatsoever.           | 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------